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Botswana-Namibia coal rail link work to start 2012
Fri Feb 4, 2011 1:58pm GMT Print | Single Page[-] Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeBy Servaas van den Bosch

WINDHOEK (Reuters) - Construction of a railway line connecting Botswana's Mmamabula coal field with the Namibian port of Walvis Bay, pegged at up to $9 billion, is expected to start in 18 months, a government official said on Friday.

Robert Kalomo, Namibia's Director of Railway Affairs in the Ministry of Works said construction of the TransKalahari Railway would take five years, with costs expected to range between $5-9 billion.

Most southern African countries are heavily investing in rail line expansions to transport more export coal to ports to meet growing global demand, especially from Asia.

Exporters in South Africa, a major exporter of coal to power stations in Europe and Asia, have failed to ship all their export coal due to bottlenecks on the rail lines leading to the Richards Bay Coal Terminal.

The Trans-Kalahari line would stretch over 1,500 km from Mmamabula to Walvis Bay, with a possibility of a connection to the South African Waterberg coal field, touted to become South Africa's next major coal mining area.

Twenty-one consortiums have submitted bids for the project, including Canadian-listed CIC Energy Corporation that plans to exploit Mmamabula, Kalomo said.

CIC said last year it was bidding to build the line together with diversified miner Exxaro, AIIM, Maropule, the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Development Bank of Namibia.

Botswana and Namibia aim to appoint a successful bidder by mid-2011, and a pre-feasibility study, funded by the World Bank, is expected to be completed by March. Namibia is also expected to construct a coal terminal at Walvis Bay. Continued...



http://af.reuters.com/article/topNews/idAFJOE7130DL20110204