The Maputo port was expected to handle around 18-million tons of cargo this year, up from 15-million tons last year, and 12-million tons in 2011, said Grindrod CEO Alan Olivier on Monday.

“We are into new territory here. The port handled 15-million tons at its peak, and then dropped to a couple of million tons before we took over.”

JSE-listed bulk handling and shipping group Grindrod operates the Maputo port in partnership with Dubai Ports World and the Mozambique Ports & Railways Company.

The original plan was to take the port to 50-million tons a year by 2025,  but now the operators were hoping to do this by 2020, noted Olivier.

The growth was expected to come from coal, magnetite, iron-ore, chrome ore, containers and vehicles, said Grindrod Freight Services CEO Dave Rennie.

Olivier added that the product mix in the Maputo terminals would be driven in favour of magnetite. Magnetite is a form of iron-ore.

He said demand for the commodity was motivating this decision, while the export volumes were also available at Maputo.

The magnetite moving through Maputo came from Palabora Mining, at roughly 5-million tons a year, with 1.25-million tons of iron-ore coming from Swaziland.

Rennie said Palabora Mining had “massive stockpiles” of magnetite that could be exported through Maputo.

While market demand would ultimately drive expansion at the Maputo port, he expected to soon see capacity for magnetite and iron-ore at roughly 10-million tons a year to 15-million tons a year.

July saw the completion of the 1.3-million tons Maputo coal terminal Phase 3.5 expansion project, to a yearly capacity of 7.3-million tons.

Key work streams on Phase 4 were progressing.

The Maputo car terminal experienced a 91% jump in volumes in the half-year ended June 30, to 37 155 vehicles imported and exported through the facility.

The South African Pretoria-based manufacturing operations of Nissan, Renault and BMW all made use of the terminal.

A second phase expansion, increasing yearly capacity to 121 000 units a year, up from 52 000 units, was completed in July.

There were plans in the pipeline to further increase capacity at the car terminal, said Rennie.

The Maputo port was important to Grindrod, as private port and rail operators did not have access to these types of infrastructure in South Africa, as they were all owned by parastatal Transnet, noted Olivier.

He said opportunities like those presented at Maputo were “the only ones available to companies like us, seeking concessions”.

Maputo also had strategic value, he added. For a start, it was closer to Gauteng than any South African port. It was also well connected. It had rail access from Swaziland, Zimbabwe, South Africa and also Botswana.

Olivier said there was also a regional need for the development of the Maputo port, as Durban was “fairly full”, and the Richards Bay Coal Terminal was “close to capacity”.

“Also, from a customer point of view, do you want to put all your eggs into one basket?”

Olivier emphasised that Transnet had been “good to Grindrod”, having allocated rail capacity to the Maputo coal terminal.

“They are operating very well”.