Mozambique and Brazil join forces to inaugurate the Nacala Corridor today

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Mozambique and Brazil join forces to inaugurate the Nacala Corridor today

11:51 CAT | 12 May 2017

Linkedin / Vitor Pereira (File photo)

Mozambican President Filipe Nyusi and Brazilian Foreign Minister Aloysio Nunes Ferreira will inaugurate the Nacala Logistic Corridor (CLN) in northern Mozambique today.

The Nacala Logistic Corridor is a 900-kilometre railway and US$4.1 billion investment which will bring coal from Moatize to the port of Nacala, where a new port terminal is capable of loading large freighters in record time.

Brazilian company Vale, which operates the mine in Tete province, and Mozambique Railways (CFM) form the investor consortium. The aim is to export 18 million tonnes of coal per year from 2018 with a more efficient transport facilitating lower costs.

The new line will see 60-wagon Vale locomotives transporting coal to the port, from where it will be exported to Europe and Asia.

According to consortium figures, during the construction phase the corridor has reached an estimated 10,000 people and now, in its operational phase, employs around 4,000 mostly Mozambican workers over its 900-kilometre extent.

The new infrastructure will mean a considerable increase in Mozambique’s export revenues, with the Economist magazine’s Intelligence Unit concluding in April that coal would top the list.

“The increase in production at the Moatize mine, from 8.7 million tonnes in 2016 to 13 million in 2017 and 18 million in 2018, is likely to be sufficient, on its own, for coal to exceed aluminium as the largest source of export revenues in Mozambique this year,” analysts at the unit write.

The Nacala Logistic Corridor company says the line will enable the transport of products other than coal from the Indian Ocean to the interior of Mozambique and neighbouring countries such as Malawi and Zambia at more competitive prices.

Source: Lusa