Wezi Tjaronda
20 March 2008
Windhoek — The multi-billion-dollar electric Trans-Kalahari railway line is going ahead as planned and may be operational by the end of next year.
Due to problems in electricity supply in the region, plans are that Falcon Resources Holdings, the holding company of the consortium of companies involved in the project, will build its own power station. Falcon Resource Holdings Chief Executive Officer Mihe Gaomab 1 told New Era yesterday that an own power plant would guarantee electricity supply.
The project, undertaken by a consortium of companies from Namibia, South Africa and Canada, namely Sekunjalo, Kumba Resources, Siemens Transportation Systems and Energem Resources, involves constructing a 1600-kilometre railway line from Morepule Colliery in east central Botswana, which will pass through Namibia's new coal mine south of Aranos and a harbour at Shearwater Bay, 30 km south of Lüderitz.
This will be the very first electrified heavy haul railway line in Namibia and is poised to be the longest in the whole of Africa.
Gaomab said although there are four principal partners in the project, more than six others wanted a stake in the project.
"People are knocking on our doors," he said.
He said the holding company had signed up an industrial international investor to be involved in the finan-cing of the project.
Meanwhile, the project is at pre-feasibility study level before a full feasibility into the project can be undertaken. Having been provisionally allocated land in 2006, Gaomab said negotiations are ongoing because the railway line passes through commercial farms, of which some owners are resisting the development.
At the signing of the memorandum of understanding over the implementation of a dry port facility at Walvis Bay between Namibia and Botswana last month, Botswana's Minister of Works and Transport, Lesego Motsumi said she was happy that the private sector showed interest in constructing a railway line.
"Proposals for mining developments, especially coal, and the world-wide demand for the product necessitate our full consideration for a Trans-Kalahari railway," she said.
It takes about 20 days for containers to reach the Port of Walvis Bay from ports in Europe which is shorter turnaround compared to about 40 days to other ports in the region.
But the proposed harbour at Sheawater Bay will provide SADC countries with shorter distances for cargo destined to the Americas and Europe, while providing access to importers, exporters and mining houses and guaranteeing access to mining companies of resource cargo such as copper, zinc, coal, iron ore, manganese and crude and refined oil products.
The 1600-km long line over the Kalahari will address import and export constraints of products and minerals from Namibia's hinterland countries, namely Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo.
The railway line also provides rail transportation to other provinces of South Africa, namely Limpopo, Gauteng and Northern Cape.
In Botswana, the railroad will connect Palapye, which is directly linked to Bulawayo in Zimbabwe, through Francistown in the north and with Mafikeng in South Africa through Lobatse. The railway line will come through Morupule and Kang in Botswana, and Mariental, Maltahohe and Aus and end at the deep-water harbour. It is hoped that the new railway line will increase the competitiveness of goods produced in SADC countries for distribution to regional and international markets.
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