Mozambique Mining Industry: “Sena railroad still has available capacity”, says rail management company

The current capacity of the Sena railroad, of around 6.5 million tons per year, is far from being fully used according to the chief executive of Mozambican port and rail management company Portos e Caminhos de Ferro de Moçambique – Centro.

Cândido Jone told Mozambican daily newspaper Notícias that the amount of cargo reserved for each mining company is not being fully used both on the railroad itself and at the Beira coal terminal.

“In 2013 5.8 million tons of capacity was seta side for all the mining companies, but only 3.8 million tons were carried, which is 64 percent of the total and means that capacity has not been reached,” said Jone.

He also noted that the projection of 6 million tons of cargo carried along the line this year remained in place, taking into consideration a new operator, Minas de Moatize, whose freight cars are already at the port of Beira.

Jone said that the government had granted a concession, which is currently in the phase of securing funding, to Indian company Essar Ports to build a coal terminal at the port of Beira with capacity for 20 million tons of coal per year.

This project began in 2011 when the Beira Railway System (Sistema Ferroviário da Beira) went back to being managed by CFM, when the state company invested US$46 million of its own funds to increase the capacity of the Sena Railroad from 3 million to 6.5 million tons per year, of which six million were for coal and 500,000 for general cargo. (macauhub/MZ)