Reuters Posted: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 [miningmx.com] -- MOZAMBIQUE's state-owned Ports and Railways Company (CFM) said on September 29 it was in advanced talks to fund the construction of a $180m coal terminal in Beira, the southern African nation's second largest city.
CFM spokesman Antonio Libombo told Reuters that the talks with international financiers were progressing and that the terminal would be completed within two years. It would be able to handle 18 million tonnes of coal per year.
"We have already designed the engineering project and construction work will be concluded by 2009 according to the established time frame," Libombo said.
The construction of the terminal at Beira was spurred by the government's decision to allow the redevelopment of the Moatize coal mine in northern Tete province.
Extensively damaged during Mozambique's civil war in the 1970s and 1980s, Moatize is believed to hold about 2.4 billion tonnes of coal reserves, making it one of the largest untapped deposits in the southern hemisphere.
A consortium led by Brazilian iron ore producer Companhia Vale do Rio Doce (CVRD) won the rights to rehabilitate the mine in 2004.
It has said it expects to begin production in 2010, with estimated annual output of about 12 million tonnes of coal. Most of the production is expected to be exported through Beira.
Libombo said that CFM also planned to spend $175m to build a railway line linking Beira port with other countries in the southern Africa region, including landlocked Zimbabwe, Malawi and Zambia.
Modernising Mozambique's ports and rail lines, which were badly damaged in a 17-year civil war that ended in 1992, is a key part of Mozambican President Armando Guebuza's efforts to boost foreign investment and trade.
The former Portuguese colony's fast-growing economy, still largely dependent on agriculture, has been handicapped by poor infrastructure, especially outside the capital Maputo.
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