Transnet expands to the Middle East
Utility wants to depend less on South Africa
TRANSNET, the South African ports, rail and pipelines operator, is pursuing expansion on the continent and in the Middle East as the company seeks to redress an overdependence on its home market.
The state-owned utility wanted 25 percent of revenue to come from outside the country by 2025, acting chief executive Siyabonga Gama said on September 10. That compares with 4.2 percent of its R61.2 billion in the 12 months to March.
The company had started to form a new unit, Transnet International Holdings, which would oversee the foreign expansion, he said.
“We have a fairly good idea where it’s going to come from and how,” Gama said. “We are not just looking at Africa, we are also looking at the Middle East. There are a number of things that we are working on.”
Transnet leadership believes the company depends too TRANSNET would consider selling part or all of the luxury Blue Train, the company’s acting chief executive said.
“If the price is right,” Siyabonga Gama said on September 10, when asked about a potential deal.
Transnet last week announced a marketing partnership with Sun International to help increase the appeal of the Blue Train, which offers rail travel between Pretoria and Cape Town for R28 870 per person for a 27-hour journey. much on South Africa, where it operates more than 20 000km of rail and facilitates 98 percent of South Africa’s global trade through its eight ports.
The opportunities for expansion included consulting, It’s the only passenger train service operated by Transnet, with the majority of routes run by the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa.
“It’s far too early” to comment on what might happen beyond the non-commercial agreement, Sun International spokesman Michael Farr said on September 11.
Sun International would examine the possibility of reintroducing a route from Pretoria to Victoria Falls, he said. – Bloomberg training and management contracts, as well as competing for, and operating concessions, Gama said. The international unit would be capitalised with “a decent amount” of funding, he said. Transnet last week signed a contract in Benin, to advise on the container terminal at the port there.
“We will try to improve their efficiencies, and we will make further investments once we have helped them with the port master plan,” Gama said. “It’s small but it indicates the direction that we are taking in a number of these markets.”
Transnet operates in Africa, including in Mozambique, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Most of the foreign activities were rail-related, he said. Transnet also wants to invest in new natural-gas pipelines in South Africa, and elsewhere, including in Tanzania and Mozambique. – Bloomberg CONSTRUCTION on a new coal power station had been halted after a worker was killed when a crane collapsed at the site, Eskom said yesterday. Kusile’s completion date would not be affected, an Eskom official said. The first unit of the coal-fired power station is still scheduled to come online in the first half of 2017. “We stopped working immediately,” Eskom spokesman Khulu Phasiwe said. He added that four other workers were injured in the same incident on Monday at the site in the north-eastern Mpumalanga province. Construction in other areas not affected by the collapse would continue, Phasiwe said. He did not say when work would resume at the affected area. Kusile’s six units are expected to add a combined 4 800MW to South Africa’s generation capacity when it is completed in 2021. – Reuters
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