South African rail and port operator Transnet expects to transport 49 million metric tons of coal to Richards Bay port in the year to March 31, it said on Friday, unchanged year on year and well below its 60 million ton target.

The state-owned company is struggling to haul bulk commodities because of a shortage of locomotives and spares, as well as cable theft and vandalism of its infrastructure.
Transnet hauled 77 million tons of coal in its 2017/18 financial year, but volumes fell sharply to 48.7 million tons in 2022/23, costing South Africa billions of rand in potential export revenue at a time when prices of the fossil fuel reached record highs on surging demand from Europe, which had banned imports from Russia after its invasion of Ukraine.

South Africa’s Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) said it handled 47.21 million tons of coal in 2023, down 6.2% from the previous year and the lowest since 1992.

RBCT – owned by 13 mining companies including Thungela Resources TGAJ.J, Exxaro Resources EXXJ.J, Seriti Resources and Glencore’s GLEN.L South African subsidiary – has been operating far below its annual export capacity of 91 million tons of coal.

Transnet said it had noted a “slight recovery” in rail performance in the current quarter after cable theft and vandalism declined thanks to security improvements made in collaboration with the private sector.

“Transnet has witnessed signs of recovery by the north corridor, which was able to improve RBCT export coal volume tonnages from below a 1 million ton average per week to 1.1 million tons by December 2023,” the company said.
Source: Reuters (Reporting by Nelson Banya, Editing by David Goodman)