Further conveyor route disruption after port fire
THERE has been another conveyor belt fire at the Port of Richards Bay, which will reportedly pose limited burden to export stakeholders.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, fire broke out on a dual conveyor route serving berths 801804, delivering woodchips as well as magnetite, chrome and coal.
Fortunately, loading of a woodchip vessel had just been completed a few hours before the fire occurred.
The cause of the blaze, which resulted in significant damage to about 80 metres of a section of the belt, is under investigation.
It is understood that industry
has offered to assist with repairs in the interest of shortening the time required to get the line operational again.
Managing executive: Richards Bay Terminals Thulasizwe Dlamini told the ZO on Wednesday that repairs should be effected by the end of next week, and that there would be minimum disruption of export cargo to vessels.
This further setback comes after the recent announcement that one of three conveyor belts damaged in the October 2021 fires had returned to full operation at the Richards Bay Bulk Terminal, prioritising the handling of coal exports.
Despite setting a July deadline to get the other two belts up and running,
the terminal says it is soon going out to market with a plan of commissioning them before the end of the year.
“The scope of work is quite huge, and we are pulling out all the stops to ensure quality workmanship as we are about to embark on this exercise of repairing these belts,” said Richards Bay Terminals' regional corporate affairs manager Msawakhe Mayisela.
Mayisela said the return of the first belt has had a significant impact on operations, and reduced the number of queuing trucks on the city’s road.
“The commissioning of the belt was a giant leap forward in improving our operations. It has since taken over 400 coal trucks off the road.
“The 2.2km-long conveyor belt has an output of more than three million tonnes per year and is among the reasons behind the reduction of truck
volumes,” he said.