Green shoots for Transnet as coal export deliveries race higher

THERE were more green shoots for Transnet Freight Rail (TFR), South Africa’s state-owned ports and rail company following its strongest coal export performance in years.TFR was managing annualised coal exports of 52 to 57 million tons during the last six weeks, said Sakkie Swanepoel, GM of marketing and logistics for Exxaro Resources. “The average over the last four weeks has been about 54Mt,” he said.Improvement in TFR’s coal volumes had been disappointing this year until it conducted a 10-day maintenance programme in July and early August. “There has been a definite improvement since that point,” said Swanepoel.Exxaro said it was “highly unlikely”, however, it would achieve coal exports of 60Mt by the close of its financial year on March 30. The coal miner is working on exports of just over 50.5Mt by the close of the calendar year.Nonetheless, this represents a small improvement.Privately-owned RBCT said in January throughout in 2023 totalled 47.21Mt, a level taking the terminal back to below levels last seen in 1992 when 48.59Mt was exported. The terminal exported 50.35Mt in 2022 which compares with its overall annual capacity of 91Mt and the all-time record export volume of 76.47Mt achieved in 2017.DiversificationAsked for a progress update on plans to diversify into other metals, Exxaro’s chief growth officer Richard Lillieke said the company continued “to have active engagement on a number of well advanced projects in support of the strategy”.“However, we are not always in control of the timelines. Suffice to say we are making good progress and we remain optimistic on the growth strategy specifically in the commodities mentioned by the CEO recently,” he said.Exxaro’s plans to diversify have been more than three years in the making having initially expressed an interest in copper and vanadium before broadening the search to other metals. Failure to meet these ambitions however led senior executives to question CEO Nombasa Tsengwa, according to reports by Business Times.“We believe that the manganese industry requires a South African champion,” Tsengwa told Bloomberg News in October. Exxaro is aiming to buy “a very good asset or two,” as well as undertake exploration, she added.Commenting previously on the transactions, Lillieke said he hoped to tie up business before the end of the year.The post Green shoots for Transnet as coal export deliveries race higher appeared first on Miningmx.Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com Weiter zum vollständigen Artikel bei Mining.com