CAPE TOWN: South Africa saw a year-on-year decline in bulk exports in March, following slumps in February and January. Bulk export volumes fell to 11-million tonnes (Mt) in March, representing a 11.7% year-on-year decrease, data from the Transnet National Ports Authority showed on Thursday.
Bulk export volumes fell 15.7% year on year in February, to 12.6 Mt, after falling 12.2% year on year to 14.4 Mt in January. In 2015 bulk exports increased 7.3% to a record 168 Mt.
Bulk exports out of Richards Bay, which are mostly coal, fell 2.1% in March to 7.2 Mt after growing 8.2% in 2015 to 93 Mt. Richards Bay Coal Terminal no longer releases operational statistics, making it more difficult for economists to track economic performance in SA in a timeous manner.
Despite a 40% plunge in the iron ore price in 2015, bulk exports out of Saldanha, which are mostly iron ore, increased 12.7% in 2015 to 63.4 Mt, but in March 2016 there was a 38% year-on-year plunge to 2.9 Mt. If Saldanha exports are excluded, total bulk exports would have grown by 4.4% year on year in March.
The 30% slump in the maize harvest last season compared with the previous season has also affected bulk exports with grain and sugar bulk exports from the other ports such as Durban down 19.3% in 2015 to 11.6 Mt, although there was a surprise 12.8% ise in December, the first year-on-year increase since January 2015.
Bulk exports out of the other ports plunged 44% year on year to 742,140 tons in January 2016, but rose to 924,943 tons in February, which was still a 7.8% year-on-year decline. In March 2016 there was a 27.5% jump to 899,038 tons.
Policy uncertainty and logistics constraints meant that SA lost out on the 2003 to 2008 commodity price boom with annual bulk exports increasing a mere 2.8 Mt between those two years. Since then there has been a marked turnaround due to better policy co-ordination between mining companies and state-owned Transnet, so that volumes have improved by 45% or 52.3 Mt between 2008 and 2015.
