South Africa: Transnet approves 11 private operators for freight rail access

• Logistics constraints at RBCT expected to ease
• Move may lift RBCT’s coal exports to 70 mnt in coming years

Mysteel Global: South Africa’s state-owned freight rail and logistics company, Transnet, announced on 13 May that it had approved 11 private operators to gain access to the country’s freight railway network, marking a key step in the government’s efforts to revive rail freight volumes and boost commodity exports such as coal and manganese.

According to the company’s announcement, the approved operators will be allowed to run services across five strategic rail corridors handling key export commodities, including coal, manganese, containers, fuel and general freight.

Among the corridors involved in the reform, the Coal Export Line remains the most strategically important. The 580-km railway connects the coalfields in Mpumalanga to Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT), the conduit for around 90% of South Africa’s seaborne coal exports.

However, the corridor has been plagued by multiple operational challenges in recent years, including locomotive shortages, cable theft, vandalism and ageing infrastructure, severely constraining coal deliveries to the terminal and leaving nearly half of RBCT’s annual export capacity of 91 million tonnes (mnt) unused, Mysteel Global understands.

South Africa mainly exports high-calorific-value thermal coal with relatively low sulphur content, making it particularly attractive to Indian buyers, who purchase more than half of the country’s coal exports.

Over the past several years, persistent logistical bottlenecks and inefficiencies along the rail corridor have caused South Africa to lose substantial market share in the seaborne thermal coal market, particularly to competing suppliers such as Australia and Indonesia.

Market sources noted that the introduction of private operators into the railway system is expected to improve coal transport efficiency and increase deliveries to RBCT, potentially lifting the terminal’s annual coal exports to nearly 70 mnt in the coming years, up from 57.66 mnt shipped in 2025.

Note: This article has been written in accordance with a content exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and BigMint.