‘Between a rock and a hard place’
Richards Bay Terminals under pressure to accept more trucks as municipality baulks
Thulasizwe Dlamini, the managing executive of Richards Bay Terminals, says the facility is “caught between a rock and a hard place” as it juggles the competing interests of coal exporters and the city of uMhlathuze in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
He said the port was under pressure to accept more trucks from miners that cannot get their coal onto freight trains due to chaos at Transnet, but the local municipality is bent on reducing the number of trucks entering the town, where they have created crippling traffic jams.
“We have two competing stakeholders with two competing interests and we have to strike a balance,” Dlamini told Business Times.
The bulk terminal said this week that one of three conveyor belts damaged in a fire in October 2021 had returned to service, which should ease road congestion. The 2.2km conveyor belt has a capacity of more than 3Mt a year, the equivalent of about 400 trucks.
The main road leading to Richards Bay has been congested for months as miners resort to long-haul trucks to ferry coal to the terminal due to problems at Transnet Freight Rail, which is buckling under the strain of insufficient locomotives, cable theft and vandalism of infrastructure.
“The game changer will be to introduce more rail capacity so that there are fewer trucks. [Then] you have a happy city and happy exporters because coal is moving in a bulk fashion and a cost-efficient manner,” Dlamini said.
In November, the terminal put the brakes on receiving cargo by road as congestion reached “uncontrollable levels”, placing the lives of road users at risk.
Dlamini said the decision was taken to promote road safety over the festive season as Richards Bay is also a popular tourist destination.
“We decided to freeze the movement of trucks to the terminal over the Christmas and New Year’s Day period.
So, from December 24 to January 2 no long-distance trucks were coming to the terminal; we were free from any congestion and safe for holidaymakers and local communities. Those are the decisions we made to improve the experience of road users. The decision yielded results; those who came to the beaches did not have to negotiate with trucks,” he said.
The terminal also decided to reduce the number of nominations for road cargo that customers can make in a month.
“We are not trying to frustrate the movement of commodities; we are trying to ensure we do not overcommit and are working within our capacity of handling trucks,” he said.
In August, Transnet claimed some success in reducing the number of trucks accessing the port at Richards Bay from 1,500 a day to 700.
The terminal said this week the coal conveyor belt managed by private company Grindrod was back in operation after the 2021 fire. Repairs to two other damaged belts servicing Foskor and ArcelorMittal South Africa — are due to begin.
“We are working with customers to ensure the process is expedited.
“We will be pushing to ensure the other two operate by June 2024. The end goal is to have the belts back”.
Dlamini said returning the Grindrod site to full operation was crucial.
“It will improve the rate at which we handle longdistance trucks and other harbour-bound trucks that are coming to the terminal. It results in better fluidity and improves our safety prospects and the rate at which we draw trucks from the national road to the terminal.
“This site is equipped with tipplers, and it has a rail siding, so it can offload trains at a much faster rate than we can.”
He added that Grindrod had lost money because of the conveyor belt fire.
“They have had to spend money on road shuttles coming to us, and they had to incur that cost for two years. I don’t know how they survived.
“With the repair of the conveyor belt, that cost goes away, and Grindrod becomes a profitable organisation.”
The bulk terminal handles more than 20 commodities — from magnetite, chrome and coal to sulphur, alumina and vermiculite.
The terminal is adjacent to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), which has a capacity of 90Mt per year and is owned by exporters including Seriti Resources, Thungela Resources and Exxaro Resources.
In 2022, rail constraints resulted in RBCT moving the smallest volume of cargo in 30 years.