A rail line linking South Africa’s iron-ore hub in the Northern Cape province to the west coast has reopened after the theft of power cables forced its temporary closure.
The 861-kilometer (535-mile) line that’s used to haul iron-ore and manganese from Kumba Iron Ore Ltd.’s giant Sishen mine and other operations in the province to the port of Saldanha reopened on Wednesday night, Sinah Phochana, a spokeswoman for the mining company, said in an emailed statement. It was briefly shut after the theft of 11 spans of wire triggered a power failure on Tuesday, according to Transnet SOC Ltd., the state-owned entity that operates the line.
The route is the second crucial corridor to be hit by theft in the past month. In the week ended May 21, a corridor that runs from the Port of Durban on the east coast to the City Deep station in downtown Johannesburg operated at just 25% capacity after overhead power lines that keep the trains running were severed.
Vandalism on the corridors compounds other problems that Transnet is grappling with, including a shortage of locomotive spare parts on its network that moves coal. Earlier this year, Transnet rejected Kumba’s overture to take over the running of the iron-ore rail line, which is one of its most profitable but battles to move sufficient volumes.
