To identify incremental capacity upgrade plans for the brownfields Sena Line between RTCM’s Benga siding in Moatize and the port of Beira, as well as integrate the development plan with a potential new green-fields corridor between Moatize and Macuze.
Rio Tinto Coal Mozambique (RTCM) desired to make use of opportunities to expand its coal export business from the Moatize basin in Mozambique’s Tete province. As a result, RTCM completed a number of studies in the period 2010 to 2012 for the construction of a rail logistics link between the Moatize Basin and the East Coast of Mozambique. This included a wide spectrum of design criteria options which required strategic revaluation in terms of approach, technology and application.
Most of the solutions proposed by previous studies only addressed high-volume scenarios for coal exports (25+Mtpa). RTCM identified that to address low to medium volume scenarios an altogether different solution must be developed, and thus the expansion of the existing Sena line came to the fore. R&H Rail undertook a concept level study aimed at identifying appropriate infrastructure expansion options and/or service design changes which may be effectively applied to the line. Due cognizance was also to be given to current and future terminal constrains, including Berths 8 and future Berth 13.
The study also developed and scrutinized a proposed Greenfields concept to export coal through a new port at Macuze. A number of suitable technologies, routes and service designs for a high-volume export scenario supplementing the Sena line and Beira Port was identified.
Dynamic simulation models were used to calculate throughput capacity for proposed system criteria. Conceptual layouts were developed, and a new rail route across the Shire river flood plain and through to the proposed Macuze port was identified.
