The Port of Richards Bay, a vital bulk export hub for SA, is facing severe congestion due to the failure of SA’s rail network. More than 303,000 trucks entered the port in the 2024 financial year — 243,000 more than a decade ago — equating to nearly 6,000 a week.
SA’s rail woes have forced exporters to shift coal and chrome shipments to road transport, and the unprecedented number of trucks entering the port has overwhelmed infrastructure and increased turnaround times substantially.
These figures are contained in the request for information issued by the department of transport as it looks for private sector players to operate SA’s key corridors.
The data highlights the Herculean task that lies before the companies that win the bid to turn around SA’s underperforming logistics sector.
“The unreliable rail system has forced many exporters to shift cargo to road transport, causing severe congestion at the Port of Richards Bay,” the request for information document reads. “Furthermore, high-value commodities, particularly coal and chrome, are now being diverted to Maputo, eroding Richards Bay’s market share.”
The first phase of the request for information processes was concluded last week, with the department saying it had received about 51 responses for the iron ore and manganese corridor, 48 responses for the coal and chrome corridor, and 63 responses for the container and automotive intermodal corridor.
Underperformance
Rail volumes in the Limpopo and Mpumalanga to Richards Bay corridor have declined more than 30%, dropping from 78.5-million tonnes in 2015/16 to 52.6-million tonnes in 2023/24 across coal, chrome and ferrochrome exports.
The request for information shows that coal reserves have the potential to sustain export volumes at levels of up to 81-million tonnes per annum through Richards Bay if rail inefficiencies are addressed and investment backlogs in infrastructure resolved.
The Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), SA’s main coal export facility, has expanded from an annual capacity of 12-million tonnes in 1976 to a 91-million tonnes, but it has struggled to meetthis volume due to the deterioration of the transport network. The mining sector is heavily reliant on Transnet’s rail infrastructure and its underperformance has severely hurt SA’s global competitiveness.
“The combined impact of rail network underperformance and port inefficiencies has caused major disruptions to SA’s logistics network, threatening the viability of the Richards Bay Corridor. Without urgent intervention, the corridor risks continued loss of market share to road freight as well as competing export routes, such as Maputo,” the request for information document reads.
“A key contributor to this decline is the deterioration of rail network availability and reliability. Since 2017, network availability has dropped by 52%, while reliability has declined by 24%. Practical capacity in critical sections, such as the Elubana area, has been reduced to just 12 x 200-wagon export coal trains per day, significantly limiting throughput.”
Like other corridors in the country, Richards Bay is grappling with theft and vandalism of critical rail infrastructure. The corridor’s signalling and telecom systems are near their end of life, leading to frequent breakdowns and unreliable train scheduling.
Reactive
The corridor has also had to contend with own goals from Transnet, which has not done preventive maintenance timeously, and the network deterioration has accelerated due to procurement delays and resource constraints.
“Maintenance activities have become largely reactive, with teams focused on repairing failures rather than conducting proactive upkeep,” the document reads.
“As a result, rail disruptions have led to widespread train cancellations, derailments and operational inefficiencies, affecting overall system performance,” it says.
The turnaround in the performance of Richards Bay corridor is central to Transnet’s target of transporting 250-million tonnes of freight per annum in the next five years.
The surge in the number of heavy vehicles on SA’s national roads is also destroying the road infrastructure, especially in the coal belt.
The SA National Roads Agency said last year that the N2 from Ermelo to Pongola had been the hardest hit. The road was constructed 40 years ago to cater for about 200 trucks a day, but is now is required to carry about 2,500 trucks a day.
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