The end of August saw the first trucks of magnetite arriving at Grindrod's Terminal de Carvão da Matola (TCM) for a new customer and yesterday, 12 September, trucks delivered cargo for a second customer. Previously, the terminal was unable to handle road trucks but through good work from the operations team (aided by the strong iron ore markets), and also in conjunction with the road agency, road haulage is now possible. The terminal is able to schedule the handling of road trucks into the terminal at a target tempo of 6 trucks per hour to stockpile on the quayside (kidney stockpile) while also ensuring that the standard rail discharge and ship out-loading is not negatively impacted.
The road haulage is a great positive for TCM as it opens up the ability to supplement the rail flows into the terminal.
This is exciting because we could see up to 100 trucks per day discharging at the terminal - full capacity 3,400 tons per day.
The terminal nameplate capacity remains at 7.3Mtpa (dependent of cargo mix between magnetite and coal) however the road haulage will enable the terminal to supplement the rail flows and build to capacity faster.