Macuse Coal Terminal

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Macuse Coal Terminal is a proposed new export terminal for Mozambican coal, to be located on the coast of Zambezia province in Macuse, Mozambique. As of October 2026, the project appeared to be indefinitely stalled.

Location

Macuse lies northeast of, and close to, the port city of Quelimane, Mozambique. Quelimane is not a coastal town, but lies on the Bons Sinais river, some 25 km from the sea.

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Background

In November 2011, Casimiro Francisco, chair of the Mozambican Coal Development Association, announced that investment in the port of Quelimane was necessary to complement the ports of Beira and Nacala in the export of Mozambican coal. Mr. Francisco called for a privately funded expansion of the port coupled with construction of a 500km rail line linking the harbor with mines in the interior province of Tete.

Concession agreements (2013)

In December 2013, Mozambique's Minister of Transport & Communications Gabriel Muthisse signed concession agreements with the Bangkok-based consortium Italian-Thai Development, granting ITD the right to construct a coal export port at Macuse (near Quelimane in Zambezia province) and develop a 525km railway connecting the port to the Moatize coalfields in Tete province. Construction on the US$5 billion project was scheduled to begin in 2016 and take five years. ITD is a 60% shareholder in TML (Thai Mocambique Logistica), the consortium that is developing the railway-port project. The remaining 40% is shared equally between CFM (Mozambique’s publicly owned port and rail company) and the private business group CODIZA.

Possible alternative

By summer 2014, the coastal locality of Supinho (also near Quelimane in Zambezia province) had been proposed as another possible site for the new deep-water port and was receiving serious consideration as an alternative to Macuse. Officials stated that they were awaiting results of Environmental and Social Impact Assessments before determining which port (Macuse or Supinho) was more suitable for the project.

Repeated delays

In July 2014, Mozambique said it was targeting 2018 as the completion date for the US$4.5 billion rail and port project to Macuse. It was reported that the project needed to operate at an initial 25 million tonnes per year capacity to be economically viable.

In August 2017, Mamed Latif of Thai Mocambique Logistica (TML) announced that $2.1 billion had already been mobilized for the project and that the consortium anticipated financial closure in the first quarter of 2018. The Portuguese company Mota Engil and the Chinese Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC) will work as joint contractors for the project.

As of September 2017, plans to begin construction of the Moatize-Macuse railway had been pushed back to late 2018, with completion scheduled for 2021. The Macuse port will be designed to accommodate ships of up to 80,000 tonnes, and annual exports are expected to start at 25 million tonnes per annum, eventually increasing to 100 million tonnes per annum. The projected cost of the project has come down to $2.7 billion ($810 million for the port and the remainder for the railway).

In November 2017, the Mozambican government signed an agreement with TML to extend the railway 120 kilometers west of Moatize to Chitima, in the Cahora Bassa district. At the signing ceremony, Mozambican Transport Minister Carlos Mesquita announced that the start date for railway construction had been pushed back again to the second half of 2019.

In 2020, Orlando Marques, the chairperson of Thai Mozambique Logistics, said building work was set to begin in 2021 and be complete in 2023, with the port starting operations in 2024. Most of Mozambique’s coal exports were still using the railway from Moatize, across southern Malawi, to the new mineral port at Nacala port. The railway to Macuse was expected to be considerably shorter, passing exclusively through Mozambican territory.

The port was expected to start with an initial capacity of 33 million tons per annum, expandable to 100 million tons per annum for the transportation of coal and general cargo. Plans included two coal loading docks and a coal stocking area with a capacity of 1.2 million tons alongside the port. A liquid terminal "is also on the cards."

As of October 2021, it appeared that construction had not actually begun as scheduled. 2021 Planet imagery for the potential site did not show obvious signs of progress.

As of August 2022, the railway component of the project reportedly remained stalled pending stronger commitments from coal mining companies and other potential customers in neighboring Zambia and Zimbabwe. The project's developers appeared to be prioritizing construction of the port over development of the railway, while seeking alternative customers for the export terminal, including the forest products company Portucel Moçambique.

A September 2023 media report affirmed that project developer Thai Mozambique Logística had already invested US$500 million to develop the port component of the project; however, it appeared that the port's first phase was now focused on exports of wood rather than coal.

In March 2024, multiple sources reported that the Macuse project had been revived, with construction set to begin in mid-2024.

However, in an April 2025 parliamentary hearing, Mozambique's national Planning and Budget Committee expressed concern about the lack of progress in developing the terminal and its associated port and railway infrastructure, noting that technical and financial problems continued to plague the project, jeopardizing its inclusion in the government's Five-Year Program for 2025-2029. The committee noted that the concessionaire for the project had never completed required feasibility studies, and that concerns about competition from existing railway lines and coal's environmental impacts had impeded financing efforts. While not calling for abandonment of the project, the government indicated that it would require technical and financial reassessment in order to move forward. A separate report from July 2025 indicated that the railway component of the project remained in limbo, with little transparency as to its current status.

As of October 2026 there had been no indication of further progress in developing the project.

Project Details

• Sponsor: Thai Moçambique Logistica (TML)/Italian-Thai Development (ITD)
• Location: Macuse, Zambezia Province, Mozambique
• Proposed Coal Capacity (Million tonnes per annum): 33 to 100
• Status: Proposed
• Type: Exports
• Coal Source: Moatize coal mines, Tete province, Mozambique
• Project cost: US$2.7 billion (port and rail)

Articles and resources

Related GEM.wiki articles

• Global use and production of coal
• Brazil and coal
• Nacala port
• Maputo port

External resources

• CCFB, "Beira Rail Concession", Workshop on Large Project Finance, Maputo, Mozambique, February 7, 2008. (Powerpoint Presentation).