First Coal

The Moatize coal field, Sena railway line and Port of Beira has produced the first shipment of coal for Rio Tinto Coal (Mozambique). Genco Loire sailed from Beira with 34,062 tonnes of coking coal on June 25th.

Genco Loire outbound from Beira.
Photo courtesy of Ricky P.

AM

Beira Commissioning

The new coal terminal at Beira, Mozambique has finally been commissioned for both inward coal receival from rail and outward loading to ship. The terminal's first ocean-going vessel 'Sea Loyalty', on her maiden voyage, has berthed and loaded coking coal for steel mills in Japan.

A colleague of the AM sent through these pictures of Sea Loyalty loading the first export cargo under the quadrant ship loaders on Berth 8. Some coal has been exported using 'skip loading' at a general cargo berth and Coeclerici's 'Bulk Zambesi' has loaded for trans-shipment at Berth 8.


The two quadrant ship-loaders at work


Sea Loyalty alongside Quay 8

Hard coking coal for steelmaking

'Kanchana Naree' loading coal from skips

The Antipodean Mariner

Bulk Zambesi

Bulk Zambesi is the new kid on the block in Beira, Mozambique - purpose built to trans-ship high grade coking coal produced from Vale's Moatise coal field. Mozambique is infrastructure poor and the coal deposits being developed by international miners are constrained by limited rail and port capacity.

China's steel industry will be one of the markets for Mozambican coking coal and freight will be a major component of the landed cost. To minimise freight costs, Vale plan to load Panamax and Capes at anchor off Beira using Bulk Zambesi and her sister Bulk Limpopo to shuttle from the port of Beira, where the draft is restricted.

Bulk Zambesi and Bulk Limpopo are owned and operated by Coeclerici Logistics of Italy and are on long-term charter to Vale. The vessels have cranes which discharge the coal into deck-mounted hoppers on the starboard side, which in turn feed a conveyor and long-travelling ship loader boom on the port side.


Bulk Zambesi


Outward bound from the Yard in China


Cranes load hoppers from the conventional cargo holds

At sea, coal is transferred using a travelling ship loader

Twin bow thrusters for port and ship-to-ship berthing

High-lift Becker Rudder and Controllable Pitch Prop

The Antipodean Mariner

Beira Mozambique

The Antipodean Mariner’s network is reporting progress at the new coal terminal in Beira. Berth 8 is a co-development by resource companies but will be operated by the Government port company CFM and stevedores Cornelder. Based on the site of a defunct minerals exporting berth, all traces of the old terminal have been erased and replaced with a modern, but basic, coal handling infrastructure.

When completed, the terminal will comprise a rail wagon unloading siding, yard stacker, two quadrant ship loaders and a single berth for up to SupraMax (55,000 DWT) bulk carriers.

The terminal is expected to be completed by February 2012 and will have a designed annual throughput of about 6 million tonnes of high grade coking coal for steel making. At this point, it is believed that the railway line linking the mines to the port will be the capacity constraint, and not the terminal.


Quadrant Shiploader South


Yard stacker which will build the stockpiles


Looking down the belt feeding the Stacker


Coeclierici's 'Bulk Zambesi' trans-shipper

Coal will be exported from Beira using two widely differing methods. Bulk carriers of up to 55,000 DWT will be able to load about 40,000 tonnes of coal at Berth 8, limited only by the draft at the berth and channel. Italian trans-shipment specialists Coeclierici have built two specialised trans-shippers which will load about 30,000 tonnes of coal at Berth 8, sail out from Beira and load Panamax and Capesize bulk carriers at anchorage off Beira.

The first trans-shipper, Bulk Zambesi is at Beira awaiting her first cargo with sister-ship Bulk Limpopo under construction in China. Both have been contracted to Vale for their coal exports.

The Antipodean Mariner

Coal from Mozambique

Mozambique is positioning itself as the new frontier for metallurgical coal. The central province of Moatize is estimated to have billion of tonnes of this critical input to the steel making industry, which sells at price multiples to thermal coal.

The Antipodean Mariner did a whistlestop tour of Mozambique in May to study the rail and port infrastructure under development for the first Mozambican coal exports since the end of the post-colonial civil war.



Two key pieces of infrastructure - the Sena Rail Line and the port of Beira will export the first coal from open cast mines at Tete. The Sena Rail Line was heavily damaged during the civil war, and has been rehabilitated by its Indian concessionaires' Rites and Ircon. The port of Beira has languished in post-war obscurity, notably only for its position as the corridor for imports and exports from Zimbabwe. The port had silted up to only 6 metres of water, reducing blue water traffic to a trickle. A new coal terminal is under construction at Beira which will export up to 6M tonnes per year.



Foreign aid has funded dredging of the Pungue River channel back to 8 metres below chart datum. Berth 8 will be refurbished to load up to Supramax bulk carriers and two new tran-shipment vessels purpose built by Coeclerici for Vale's 4M tonne per year capacity.



The Zambesi River flows from Tete to the Indian Ocean and the Mocambican Government are looking at permitting barging to move coal for export.



Mozambique has a goldrush town feel about it - conspicuous wealth side-by-side with grinding poverty. Mozambique certainly felt like a country with a future.



The Antipodean Mariner
13th June 2011