Grindrod Unit, Northwest Rail Sign $989 Million Zambia Line Deal Matthew Hill, Bloomberg, Lusaka, 3 February 2014 Zambia's Northwest Rail Company Ltd. has signed an agreement with South African transportation company Grindrod Ltd. (GND) to build a railway connecting mines owned by Canada's Barrick Gold Corp. (ABX) and First Quantum Minerals Ltd. (FM) Work on the $989 million project, which will also connect mines in Africa's biggest copper producer to the Angolan border, should start this year, Grindrod said today in an e-mailed statement. "I have been developing this project for a number of years and the synergies with Grindrod's rail businesses makes Grindrod an ideal partner in the joint venture," Enoch Kavindele, Northwest Rail's founder, said in the statement. The first phase of the 590-kilometer (367-mile) line will link mines at Lumwana and Solwezi with smelters in Chingola, lowering transportation costs. Phase two of the project will combine with Angola's Benguela railway that runs to the Lobito port. Last month the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority signed a deal with Trafigura Beheer allowing the commodity trader to run its own trains on a line connecting Zambia with Dar es Salaam, the Tanzanian commercial capital. Northwest Rail received environmental approval to build the railway in May, and had initially planned to start construction by December. A bankable feasibility study on the line is under way, Grindrod said. Most of Zambia's copper is taken by truck to ports at Dar es Salaam and Durban in South Africa. Moving the metal by rail will probably be cheaper as trains use less energy. The line to the Angolan border will also allow Zambia to import oil from Angola, Grindrod said. To contact the reporter on this story: Matthew Hill in Lusaka at [email protected] From: http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-02-03/grindrod-unit-northwest-rail-sig n-989-million-zambia-line-deal -- -- You are subscribed. This footer can help you. Please POST your comments to [email protected] or reply to this message. You can visit the group WEB SITE at http://groups.google.com/group/yclsa-eom-forum for different delivery options, pages, files and membership. To UNSUBSCRIBE, please email [email protected] . You don't have to put anything in the "Subject:" field. You don't have to put anything in the message part. All you have to do is to send an e-mail to this address (repeat): [email protected] . --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "YCLSA Discussion Forum" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
<<image001.jpg>>
