Transnet saw a 5.3% growth in revenue (to R65.5 billion) for its 2016/2017 financial year, CEO Siyabonga Gama announced at a media briefing today.
He highlighted that this was on the back of strong volumes in general freight, export coal and manganese as the road-to-rail migration strategy gathered momentum.
Gama pointed out that the revenue gains were dampened by the more than R600 million given to customers in price reprieves as part of a strategy to stimulate the economy.
Spending continued on the ambitious Market Demand Strategy (MDS), with Transnet spending R21.4 billion in the financial year, bringing the total investment spend to date to R145 billion. A further R229.2 billion will be invested over the next seven years, said Gama, noting that this included R20 billion earmarked for mergers and acquisitions as part of a strategy to diversify revenue streams.
Among Transnet’s “significant investments” is the acquisition of locomotives to modernise its fleet in anticipation of a rise in general freight volumes in the coming years.
The SOE concluded locomotive acquisition contracts in 2014, which resulted in the acquisition of approximately 1 319 new locomotives for the general freight business and coal business over the MDS period. Overall, 452 locomotives have been accepted and contracts have been concluded as follows:
•95 class 20E electric locomotives;
•60 class 43 diesel locomotives;
•100 21E electric locomotives; and
•197 locomotives from the 1 064 locomotive programme have been accepted into operations, while four are currently undergoing acceptance testing.
Other infrastructure investment highlights for the year include:
- 2 billion invested in rail infrastructure
- R2.3 billion invested in the wagon build programme
- R137 million invested in expanding capacity for manganese beyond 5.5 million tonnes (mt), taking total investment to R811 million so far.
- R145 million invested in the coal line expansion to 81 mt, including the upgrade of yards, lines and electrical equipment.
- R28 million invested in the Waterberg upgrade Stage II to grow rail capacity to 6 mt through incremental upgrades of the existing rail networks and yards using additional loops, while maintaining the existing axle loads, electrical upgrades and improved train control systems.
- R1.5 billion invested in the New Multi-Product Pipeline. The 24” main pipeline and 16” inland pipelines have been fully commissioned and are operational, having transported 15 billion litres of diesel from Durban to the inland region since commissioning.
- R1 billion in the maintenance and acquisition of cranes, tipplers, dredgers, tugs, straddle carriers and other port equipment.
