Transnet has taken delivery of a R892 million fleet of straddle carriers and rubber tyre gantry (RTG) cranes at the Port of Durban. (Lyse Comins/M&G)
Transnet has taken delivery of a R892 million fleet of straddle carriers and rubber tyre gantry (RTG) cranes at the Port of Durban, part of the first batch of more than 100 units of cargo handling equipment to be delivered to the ports this year.
The delivery, which is part of Transnet’s R3.4 billion capital spend at South Africa’s six ports for the 2024-25 financial year, will boost the terminals’ efficiency, said state logistics firm’s group chief executive, Michelle Phillips, at the unveiling of the equipment on Thursday.
The straddles and cranes delivered to Durban Container Terminal were among the first of consignments of more than 100 pieces of new cargo handling equipment to be delivered during the 2025 calendar year, Phillips said.
The purchase is part of Transnet’s recovery plan to boost cargo handling capacity and get the state-owned port operator back into the black after recording a hefty R7.3 billion loss in 2023-24 after it was hollowed out during the state capture years.
Phillips said the existing fleet at Durban Container Terminal’s Pier 1 had been installed 18 years ago and was way past its life span of 15 years.
The 100 pieces of equipment, including the 20 straddle carriers for the port’s Pier 2 terminal and nine rubber-tyred gantry cranes for Pier 1, started arriving in December 2024 and delivery will continue until 31 May 2025. The straddles cost R23 million and the cranes R48 million a unit respectively, totalling R892 million for the new fleet.
Additional equipment to be delivered to Durban Container Terminals this year includes four ship-to-shore cranes, 40 haulers and 67 trailers, with arrival scheduled from April to December.
Port Elizabeth Container Terminal will take delivery of 12 straddle carriers while Cape Town will receive 28 cranes and straddle carriers in the 2026 financial year, Phillips said.
She added that in line with the company’s measures to reduce its carbon footprint, the new straddle carriers and cranes were diesel electric hybrids approved by the Environmental Protection Agency.
“The equipment we have on hand is not only sustainable, but it also has higher stacking capacity than any of the models before 2025.”
Philips said Transnet’s 10 000 port terminals workers — part of the company’s 50 000 employees — had done their best to deliver services under difficult circumstances in recent years caused by the aged infrastructure.
She noted the cost of delays incurred when vessels queue outside the port, as happened in October 2023 when there were more than 20 vessels waiting to enter.
“The cost of those delays are added to the goods that we are importing into this country. So when as an ordinary person, you walk into Mr Price, or Foschini or Woolworths and you wonder why things are expensive, it is because we have not been as efficient as we should have been,” said Phillips.
Durban Container Terminal executive manager Earl Peters said the new equipment was already making a difference in decongesting the port on the land side, where trucks arrive to drop off and pick up containers.
“[It] will allow us to operate near the design capacity of the respective terminals. I’m confident that Pier 2 should be able to do between two to 2.1 million TEUs [twenty-foot equivalent units/the size of one a container) per annum … We can’t keep trending in the region of about 1.7 million TEUs,” Peters said.
“My team has had to work with equipment that failed on numerous occasions during the shift of working, and yet we are still pushing for performance targets to be achieved, because the volumes come and we still have to handle it.”
Transnet board chairperson Andile Sangqu said such investment in equipment would “lay the foundation for a more efficient and dependable Transnet”.
Last year, Durban Container Terminal’s Pier 2 took delivery of 20 haulers, two reach stackers, one empty container handler, 10 trailers, two forklifts and eight straddle carriers.
Other initiatives under way include the implementation of a maintenance regime for the existing fleet, an original equipment manufacturer strategy that has sped up the arrival of spares to improve the reliability and availability of equipment and the addition of a fourth shift for the 24-hour operation.
In the 2023-24 financial year, Pier 2 handled 1.7 million TEUs, while Pier 1 processed 650 000 units, representing a combined 60% of South Africa’s container volumes.
Transnet Port Terminals’ capital spend this year also includes its other terminals in Richards Bay, East London, Cape Town, Gqeberha and Saldanha Bay