Nacala Coal Terminal
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Nacala Coal Terminal is the largest coal export terminal in Mozambique. The terminal began commercial operation in 2015, and is connected by rail to the Moatize mine in Mozambique's coal-rich Tete province.
Location
The port is located in northern Mozambique's Nampula province.
Background
In 2009, Mozambique’s Transport Minister Paulo Zucula announced that the government had secured $500 million from the Dutch government and the European Union to to build a new railway line by 2015 from the Moatize coalfield in Mozambique's coal rich Tete province to the deep-water Nacala port, which had been identified as a desirable location for a new coal export terminal.[1]
The decision to build a new coal export port and railway line came in response to inadequacies in the export infrastructure at the port of Beira, which at the time was northern Mozambique's only operating coal terminal. Coal from Vale's Moatize mine, which was commissioned in mid-2011, and Rio Tinto's Benga coal mine could only be transported to the port at Beira via the 660km long Sena railway, which had limited capacity, was built to a poor standard, and remained vulnserable to flooding. Beira port itself was also subject to silting, requiring constant dredging.[2]
In July 2011, it was announced that Brazilian based Vale had begun studies on building a coal terminal at Nacala. The project's cost was estimated at about US$1.5 billion.[3] In 2012, Vale confirmed that it planned to spend US$4.4 billion to build the terminal and a 912 km railway line to connect Nacala port with the Moatize mine.[4]
When fully operational, the railway was to transport coal from Moatize to Nacala in trains with an average length of 1,500 meters, composed of at least 120 coal cars pulled by four locomotives. Plans called for the railway to offer universal access to all coal producers in Tete province. CLN projected a transport capacity of over 11 million metric tons per year by the end of 2015, 13 million tons by the end of 2016, and 18 million tons by the end of 2017.[5][6]
In January 2015, the port of Nacala was nearing completion and the new railway line was fully in place. CLN, operator of the port and railway projects, received shipment of the first locomotives for use on the new line in mid-2014,[7] and load testing on the railway began in November 2014.[5] In June 2015, Vale Mozambique said it would begin exporting coal through the port in the third quarter of the year.[8]
In May 2017, an official inauguration ceremony at Nacala port celebrated completion of the 912-kilometer railway, which had been operating at limited capacity from 2014 to 2016. The completed railway was able to accommodate a maximum load of twenty-two 120-car trains daily, allowing the port to operate at its full export capacity of 18 million tonnes per annum. The port had storage facilities for one million tonnes of coal and was expected to be able to load 150 ships per year.[9] Trains were scheduled to operate every one to two hours between Moatize and Nacala port. The thermal and metallurgial coal exported from Nacala was to be shipped to Brazil, China, and Japan.[10][11] With the port operating at full capacity, coal was expected to surpass aluminum as Mozambique's primary export.[12]
Nacala's natural deep-water harbor and new state-of-the-art facilities offered significant advantages over the port of Beira, which required regular dredging. Nacala was capable of accommodating much larger ships than Beira, prompting Vale to announce in late 2017 that it would discontinue all coal exports from Beira and move 100% of its Mozambican coal port operations to Nacala.[13]
In January 2021, Japan’s Mitsui & Co announced it had agreed to sell its stake in the Moatize coal mine and Nacala Corridor rail and port projects to Vale for $1 each. The move came as Vale separately decided to divest its coal business in a bid to focus on its core operations and in line with its stated aim of becoming carbon-neutral by 2050. Mitsui planned to complete the transfer of the stake and associated loans to the Brazilian miner by the end of the year. The Nacala transport corridor still had a book value of about $500 million, including its loans.[14]
Annual coal throughput figures
The Nacala coal terminal is Mozambique's largest in terms of export volume. Export figures for the past several years were as follows:
- 2016 6,545,000 tonnes[15]
- 2017 10,717,300 tonnes[15]
- 2018 11,615,600 tonnes[16]
- 2019 8,611,100 tonnes[17]
- 2020 5,855,600 tonnes[18]
- 2021 7,850,700 tonnes[18]
- 2022 11,562,000 tonnes[19]
- 2023 13,730,300 tonnes[20]
- 2024 13,872,250 tonnes[21]
Ownership
As of October 2026, Nacala port and the associated railway are owned by Vulcan Resources, a subsidiary of the India-based Jindal group, which acquired them from Vale in April 2022.[22] The terminal is operated by CLN (Corredor Logistico Integrado de Nacala).[7]
Project Details
- Operator: CLN – Corredor Logistico Integrado de Nacala[23]
- Owner: Vulcan Resources[22]
- Location: Nampula province, Mozambique
- Annual Coal Capacity: 18 Mtpa (million tonnes per annum)[24][25]
- Status: Operating[21]
- Start year: 2015[8][26][27]
- Type: Exports[21][24]
- Source of coal: Moatize coal mine, Tete province, Mozambique[28]
- Funding: Japan International Cooperation Agency
Articles and resources
References
- ↑ "Mozambique To Build New Coal Railway Line To Ship Coal Mine From Moatize Mines To Nacala Port", Mining Exploration News, October 6, 2009
- ↑ Agnieszka Flak and Marina Lopes, "Poor railways, ports put brake on Mozambique's coal rush", Reuters, April 16, 2013
- ↑ "Vale Starts Study on Coal Terminal at Mozambique’s Deepwater Nacala Port" Fred Katerere, Bloomberg, June 5, 2010
- ↑ "Mozambique to start work on Nacala coal terminal," Reuters, February 24, 2012
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 "Moatize/Nacala railway in Mozambique in load testing phase", Macau Hub, November 28, 2014
- ↑ "Vale Moçambique plans to start exporting coal via port of Nacala-a-Velha in 2015", Macau Hub, March 14, 2014
- ↑ 7.0 7.1 "Mozambique Mining Industry: CLN receives first 10 locomotives to carry coal from Tete to Nacala", The Mozambique Resources Post, August 5, 2014
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 "Vale Moçambique starts exporting coal via the port of Nacala this year," Macau Hub, June 1, 2015
- ↑ "Nacala Corridor Officially Inaugurated," Railway Gazette, May 16, 2017
- ↑ "Nacala coal terminal, Mozambique, starts operating in full on 12 May," Macau Hub, May 9, 2017
- ↑ "21 trains a day: Coal terminal at Nacala port officially opens on Friday – Mozambique," Club of Mozambique, May 9, 2017
- ↑ "Exports from Mozambique to increase with inauguration of the Nacala coal terminal," Macau Hub, May 12, 2017
- ↑ "Mozambique Logistics: Vale diverts its coal exports to Nacala-a-Velha terminal," The Mozambique Resources Post, November 15, 2017
- ↑ "Mitsui to sell stake in Mozambique coal mine, logistics corridor to Vale," Reuters, January 20, 2021
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 "Informação Estatística Anual 2017 / Annual Statistical Information 2017 (p 26)" (PDF). CFM. 2017.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Informação Estatística Anual 2018 / Annual Statistical Information 2018 (p 28)" (PDF). CFM. 2018.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Informação Estatística Anual 2019 / Annual Statistical Information 2019 (p 28)" (PDF). CFM. 2019.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ 18.0 18.1 "Informação Estatística Anual 2021 / Annual Statistical Information 2021 (p 28)" (PDF). CFM. 2021.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Informação Estatística Anual 2022 / Annual Statistical Information 2022 (p 27)" (PDF). CFM. 2022.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Informação Estatística Anual 2023 / Annual Statistical Information 2023 (p 27)" (PDF). CFM. 2023.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 "Informação Estatística Anual 2024 / Annual Statistical Information 2024 (p 34)" (PDF). CFM. 2024.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ 22.0 22.1 "Vale concludes sale of its coal assets". Vale. 2022-04-25.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Concessões". CFM (Caminhos De Ferros de Moçambique). Retrieved 2026-10-29.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ 24.0 24.1 "Operações Portuárias". Nacala Logistics. Retrieved 2026-10-29.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Projecto do Corredor Logístico Integrado de Nacala". CFM (Caminhos De Ferros de Moçambique). Retrieved 2026-10-29.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "First coal export from the Mozambique Port of Nacala". Freight News. 2015-07-21. Retrieved 2026-10-29.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Vale S.A. Form 20-F for the fiscal year ended: December 31, 2015 (p 20)". US Securities & Exchange Commission. 2016-03-31.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link) - ↑ "Relatório Independente da Iniciativa de Transparência na Indústria Extractiva (p 146)" (PDF). ITIE Moçambique. 2026-03-31.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)
