By Amelia Genis
It is possible to use trains to transport fertiliser from Omnia’s plant in Sasolburg to Zimbabwe and Zambia. To pull off this feat was a “frustrating” process, but trains are far more efficient than lorries.
Trains can transport fertiliser to Zambia in fewer than seven days, and because they could get pre-clearing on customs, they did not struggle with congestion at the border posts, says Jacques de Villiers, chief executive officer of manufacturing, operations and procurement at Omnia Holdings.
Speaking at the Argus Fertilizer Africa conference recently held in Cape Town, De Villiers said the trains that ran from Sasolburg via Musina and Bulaway to Lusaka presented so many benefits for manufacturers, logistics companies and clients.
De Villiers said afterwards that the fertiliser was transported with a Transnet train from South Africa, but handed over to the relevant railways in Zimbabwe and Zambia.
“We are keen to roll this out on a more permanent basis, but I think we still need to do a lot of work with the different public and private partners before it can be seen as part of our logistics.”
During the trial run they did a lot of work to test the ‘first and last mile’ to ensure that it is viable. “The result was that we’ve seen that it can work really well.”
Need for a different transport model for fertiliser
De Villiers was in conversation with Dr Nicholas Obby Mainza, chief agricultural economist: trade and agricultural affairs in the ministry of agriculture of Zambia, about the challenges set by the reliable supply of fertiliser to clients.
One of the urgent issues for the whole fertiliser industry is how to change the mode of transport.
“It’s not practical to continue taking in excess of 400 000 tonnes of fertiliser, explosives and other product into Zambia on trucks, a country where there is rail infrastructure,” De Villiers said. He added that is why they did a test train about two years ago and why it was so important to build better public private partnerships.
However, that does not mean that all problems with infrastructure are something of the past. Ports will always be important because most of the ingredients used in different fertilisers blends are imported. De Villiers also said that infrastructure like ports, rail transport and electricity has deteriorated during the past years.
