Transnet says vigorous growth in rail volumes; market share gains and intense focus on efficiencies have resulted in strong financial and operational performance.

The company claims to be South Africa’s leading investor, saying R33,6 billion has been spent on capital expenditure. This takes its total spend over the last three years to R92,8 billion.

It says its revenue for the year ended 31 March 2015 grew 8% to R61,2 billion, which it explains is driven by a 7, 7% increase in rail volumes, predominantly with regards to iron ore and manganese, coal and mineral mining and chrome exports. The company reports that its container volumes and automotive arms rose 6,7% as the road-to-rail migration led the charge to wrestle rail-friendly market share away from road transporters.

According to Transnet, bulk and break bulk volumes at the ports rose 8,1%, while Pipelines’ petroleum volumes rose 3,6%. The company says Transnet Engineering increased sales to customers other than freight rail by 6, 3% to R1,7 billion, a result driven mainly by a strong focus on sales of locomotives and wagons in Africa.

Transnet reports that container volumes at the ports remained flat during the fiscal, while some general freight business commodities such as steel, cement and agriculture declined on the impact of declining global demand.

Both the coal and iron ore export lines recorded their highest weekly tempos of 1,7 million tons (mt) and 1,4 million mt respectively, thanks to an improvement in cycle times from 67 hours to 60 hours for the coal line and 86 hours to 78 hours for iron ore.