Vale Moçambique produced around 4 million tons of coal in Mozambique in 2013, but managed to export just 3 million tons, said the company’s managing director Ricardo Saad, summing up the activities of the Mozambican subsidiary of Brazilian group Vale.

The problems with transporting cargo along the Sena Railroad, linking Beira, in Mozambique’s Sofala province, to the coal town of Moatize, in Tete province, was the main constraint on exporting all of the company’s coal, Saad said.

Vale Moçambique’s revenues from selling coal, mainly to the Asian market, totalled US$381.9 million, of which US$58.5 million, 15.3 percent of the total, was used to pay taxes.

Noting that the coal mining project was still in an investment phase, and that this would continue for at least five years, the managing director of Vale Moçambique said that the company posted an operating loss of US$484.4 million in 2013.

Along with other investments the company has invested US$932.1 million to build an alternative rail route covering the 900 kilometres from Moatize to the port of Nacala, in Nampula province.

In 2014 the company expects to spend around US$2 billion on increasing the processing capacity of the mine and on the Nacala railway.

Projections for coal production this year are 5 million tons, of which 4 million tons are expected to be exported. (macauhub)