Transnet Upbeat As Rail Volumes Show Slight Recovery

Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) has experienced improvement in rail volumes in the last quarter of the 2023 calendar year, as the implementation of Transnet’s Recovery Plan got underway.

The quarterly performance rate of delivery to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) increased from 47,10 million tons in the third quarter to 48,74 million tons in the fourth quarter. TFR’s North Corridor handles an estimated 41% of total TFR volumes and supports key commodity sectors including export coal and chrome. Transnet has witnessed signs of recovery by the North Corridor, which was able to improve RBCT Export Coal volume tonnages from a below 1million tons average per week to 1,1 million tons by December 2023.

The widely reported challenges with security, locomotive availability & reliability and network reliability have hampered TFR’s performance on this corridor in the last few years, and management is implementing a number of initiatives in the short, – medium-and- long term, to ensure operational improvements.

The partnership with industry is resulting in a decline in the number of cable theft incidents on the corridor, although some sporadic incidents still occur. Transnet continues to intensify deployment of security measures to reduce cable theft and infrastructure vandalism.

Transnet and RBCT signed a Mutual Cooperation Agreement in November 2023, which allows for – amongst others – collaboration on fast-tracking maintenance and operations sustaining procurement.

Transnet is forecasting to rail 49mt of Export Coal to RBCT against a declared capacity of 60mt for the financial year ending March 2024. By the end of December 2023, total rail volumes of 35.8 million tons had been delivered.

Transnet continues to implement recovery initiatives in partnership with the National Logistics Crisis Committee (NLCC) and other stakeholders in line with its mandate to reliable, integrated, and seamless port and rail solutions.