Manganese export channel, uranium market outlook, mine nationalisation view

摘要

THE INDUSTRY HAS TENDED TO favour manganese being exported along the Sishen-Saldanha channel, but Transnet Freight Rail's (TFR's) newly reinstated CEO, Siyabonga Gama, argues that South Africa's new deep-water harbour, Ngqura, in the Eastern Cape, is the logical choice. Read on page 21 of this edition of Mining Weekly of Gama's conviction that a heavy-haul channel to Ngqura and the establishment of a terminal in the Coega industrial development zone will make more sense for the country, for the industry and for Transnet. He even asserts that the so-called 'go east' option could shave up to R3-billion off a project price tag currently estimated at between R12-billion and R15-billion. The country currently exports primarily through Port Elizabeth. But Transnet is committed to both expanding the level of exports and vacating the existing manganese terminal at Port Elizabeth by 2017.