Trackwork being carried out on a section of the unrehabilitated 77km stretch between Entre Lagos on the Malawi/ Mozambique border and Cuamba which will be used by Vale freight trains on its new line to Nacala. Photo: Paul Ash
to finance the line. Further details of the ITD project will be announced by the end of the year.
Standard-gauge line Kazakhstan-based Eurasian Natural
Resources Corporation (ENRC) is another mining company joining the rush to the Moatize’s coal, and the latest to announce plans to build a railway. ENRC is planning to build a standard- gauge line from Chiúta in Tete province to Nacala which will be designed to handle 60 million tonnes of coal per year when it is completed in 2015. ENRC has so far not mined any coal at all in Tete, but expects annual production to reach 30-40 million tonnes by 2020. It has 12 exploration licenses in the province, and is currently working on one at Estima. The Estima
IRJ October 2012
project is expected to produce 20 million tonnes of coal a year by 2015-16. The ENRC railway, for which the mining group will arrange finance, will avoid Malawi, running entirely through Mozambique. ENRC will develop port facilities at Nacala close to Vale’s, and is expecting an initial capacity of 40 million tonnes of coal a year, which could later rise to 60 million tonnes. A further expansion to 100 million tonnes is possible.
In developing its plans for the railway ENRC has worked closely with Mott MacDonald which began studying prospective routes in 2008, before ENRC acquired Central African Mining Exploration Company (Camec) in 2009 establishing its mining interests in Africa. Mott MacDonald conducted a cost analysis of transporting coal and considered a range of concepts
including barging coal down the Zambesi River to the Indian Ocean and an alternative route through Malawi to the coast subsequently adopted by Vale. It eventually settled on a 1137km route in Mozambique from Chiúta to Nacala. The provisional design includes alignment, structures, and port infrastructure and calls for a single- track line with 21 passing loops typically every 50-70km with a minimum loop-length of 6km. Heavy- duty, 68kg/m track will be laid in order to accommodate 32-tonne axleloads. And with ENRC’s mining licence existing on the southern side of the Zambesi River, and the railway running on the northern side, a 40km-long conveyer-belt system will be built to carry the coal over the river near Cahora Bassa to the railhead at Chiúta. Hilly topography is set to be a major
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