Let’s start with Coal.

 

In the coming Paper, the current coal-euphoria has been scrutinised and a couple of issues are worth a mention.

 

Primo: it was found necessary to emphasize the difference between coking coal (metallurgical) and thermal coal both in terms of values and of markets.

 

This is crucial in various ways because, although not always explicitly referred to, what the mining companies (hereinafter designated by extractors) are primarily looking for in the Tete Basin is Coking Coal and not really the Thermal one.

 

Hence, in order to reach a plausible 2020-forecast for the Tete coal basin, and its induced significance on the Indian Ocean’s seaborne trade, a critical review has been made on the marketing potential offered by the quality of these two types of Tete’s coal and, in particular, on their linkage with the Coke Connection and the mineral trinity (iron ore, coking coal and nickel) that drive their well established dominance of the global maritime trade in a world characterized by the trilogy population-urbanization-motorization.

 

One of the products of this research is a matrix of coal flows in 2020.

 

This matrix, although quite conservative if compared to the wide range of publicly announced disparate figures, suggests at least a duplication of the number of large dry-bulk carriers navigating the Channel of Mozambique as a result of the exponential growth of coal exports63 MTPA, excluding new transits from RSA, Botswana and Zimbabwe.

 

This coal-matrix also evidences the rather geo-dispersed nature of eventual maritime flows from the coast of Mozambique and the managerial potency required by their underpinning continental corridors.

 

Implicitly, the matrix anticipates an eventual degree of technical sophistication that unequivocally points to the urgency of investing smartly on maritime promptness from now on – particularly in Mozambique that, nowadays, handles less than 14 MTPA of dry-bulks and 1,227 recorded vessel annual calls.

Energy and Mining Corridors 2020

Good Morning

... Coal

Fluvial ideas

hydrocarbons

natural gas

Mining Extractions

Routes & Dialogues