Minerals Council South Africa is hopeful that Transnet’s open access agenda will reverse five years of decline in the country’s rail performance and mineral exports.
Briefing the media at the Mining Indaba on Monday, council CEO Mzila Mthenjane said the state-owned utility’s rail performance has “bottomed out” and is now trending upwards thanks to ongoing efforts at reform.
However, persistent vandalism means the cost of repairing the country’s vast railway network remains a concern for council members and other private party operators, threatening to slow down the entrance of private capital.
In the five years to 2022, the country’s rail tonnages plunged by 77-million tonnes to a low of 149-million, a trend that was “quite rightly categorised as a crisis”, said Mthenjane.
Since then, Transnet’s deliveries climbed to 160-million tonnes in 2024. In the year to end-March 2026, they are expected to have grown by another 8-million tonnes.
Efforts to liberalise logistics are already beginning to bear fruit in the coal sector after deliveries to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal tumbled from 77-million in 2017 to 48.7-million tonnes in 2022. Coal exports recovered to 57.7-million in 2025, thanks to joint initiatives between Transnet and coal mining companies through the privately owned terminal.
“There certainly is a turnaround. They’re really moving in the right direction, even though they weren’t able to meet their targets this year,” said Mthenjane.
Still, “it is a long way from achieving the 226-million tonnes it railed in 2017. We cannot afford any deviation from the timelines to enact the unbundling of Transnet Rail Infrastructure Manager (Trim) and Transnet National Ports Authority from the Transnet Group, which is set for approval in September 2026,” he said.
In late 2024, Transnet split into an operations division and a management division, with the latter charged with managing the application process for private “train operating companies” to buy slots on its 21,232km network.
Business Day’s sister publication Business Times reported that 11 train-operating companies have provisionally been granted slots, including MSC, the world’s biggest container shipping operator, and a cohort of lesser-known private firms.
However, the utility said it would need R14bn a year over the next five years to get its ailing network up to standard for private operators. Analysts at Investec have estimated the overall cost at R200bn.
“One thing that has been a consistent issue has been vandalism on the rail,” said Mthenjane. “It’s the one thing that continues to hamper full performance.”
Mthenjane said Transnet has been responding to the threat by implementing a new security regime, including the addition of drones and other security technologies to monitor its railways.
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