KwaZulu-Natal port & rail operations normalise

20 Jul 2021 / Durban & Richards Bay, South Africa

The Ports of Durban and Richards Bay have reported normalised levels of operations over the past two days, with all employees having reported for their shifts and we are working towards clearing the backlog caused by the unrest in the past week.

The reinstatement of the supply-chain on the key national roads, the N2 and N3 has increased activities at the port terminals as trucks continue to call the ports. The two ports remained open throughout the protests of last week, but the operations were significantly impacted by the shutdown of the warehouses and cold storage facilities, public transport as well as limited truck movement.

In Richards Bay, the Multi-Purpose and Dry-Bulk Terminals handled seven vessels over the weekend. Pier 2 in the Port of Durban serviced four vessels while Pier 1 continues to work on the two-berthed vessels.

Transnet has been engaging all impacted customers throughout this time, to ensure that services can resume as quickly as possible, and where required, to deal with bottlenecks caused by the protests.

The rail-corridor network between Gauteng and Durban, which was negatively impacted by the unrest - has been re-opened with train services running since Friday. Transnet Freight Rail has since managed to run 42 trains since its re-opening on Friday, and will continue to run more trains as efforts to stabilise this key network intensify.

The challenge of cable theft continues unabated along with community encroachment on the network. To deal with these problems all our trains will be accompanied by security to ensure that we are able to provide a reliable service.

The Transnet Pipelines network remains operational. Additional patrols have been deployed across the entire network, resulting in the arrest of four people for tampering with the pipeline last night. Transnet has confirmed that this is not linked to the unrest.

Transnet remains on high alert and additional security and protection of critical infrastructure across the network remains in place.

A 24-hour Nerve Centre hotline remains operational to monitor and respond to security-related incidents.

(For information about operations in Durban, contact GAC South Africa at [email protected])

Source: Transnet update dated 20 July 2021

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