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Manganese Division

Rail

Manganese ore produced at Nchwaning and Gloria mines is transported by private rail to Hotazel where the trucks are transferred to the Hotazel-Port Elizabeth railway line. The railing takes approximately 30 hours for the +/- 1100km distance from the mines to the Port Elizabeth harbour.

At the harbour the train is split up into 25 or 50 trucks and shunted into the ore terminal marshalling yard. Here various truck loads are split up per grade and shunted to the truck tippler where the ore is channelled to the storage bins or directly to the ship by means of conveyor belts.

Port - Port Elizabeth Harbour

The port facilities at the Port Elizabeth harbour consist of a two-line interconnecting conveyor belt system. From the tippler, the ore is carried either by one or both lines to the storage bins where it is deposited by means of one or two stacker-reclaimers, or directly to the vessel.

There are four bins with a total capacity of 460 000 tons. When required for loading, the reclaimers are positioned alongside the required grades and extract the ore from the bins back onto the conveyor belts to the outloaders for shipping.

Port - Durban

Situated on the East Coast of South Africa; 680 nautical miles north-east of Cape Agulhas on a longitude of 31º 02E and Latitude of 29º 52' South.

The Durban port has 57 berths and has over 4,000 commercial vessels calling at the port each year. It is South Africa's main general cargo and container berth and handles approximately 3 million tons of cargo per year.

Assmang Limited’s manganese ore is also handled and managed at the Durban port. This service is currently provided by Bulk Connections (Pty) Ltd.