Despite the strong monthly growth, the year on year (y/y) increase was only 3.8% after a 9.4% y/y drop in February and a 28.1% y/y surge in January.
The January 2012 surge was in part due to base effects as January 2011 port operations had been disrupted by weather, as were operations in March 2012.
This weather disruption resulted in bulk exports out of Richards Bay, which are mostly coal, dropping by 12.2% m/m to 6.2 Mt.
Bulk exports rose by 6.6% in 2011 to a record 141.49 Mt after a 9.0% jump in 2010. The y/y increase in the first three months of 2012 was 6.7%.
The slower growth last year was in part due to weather-related disruptions as well as cable theft on the Mpumalanga-Richards Bay coal line, which has resulted in derailments and other disruptions to traffic.
The coal line was closed for 20 days in May and June 2011 to do necessary maintenance and in October exports out of Richards Bay exceeded 8 Mt or an annualised 96 Mt, but this eased to 7.3 Mt in November before rising to 7.5 Mt in December and 7.7 Mt or an annualised 92 Mt in January 2012.
In February 2012 Richards Bay shipped 7 Mt and shipments for the first two months were up 22.8% y/y.
Last year shipments out of Richards Bay, which are mostly coal, disappointed with a 1.4% rise to 76 Mt in 2011, while mostly iron ore shipments out of Saldanha Bay increased by 12.3% to 53.3 Mt. In January 2012 the y/y increases were 34.4% and 25.0% respectively, indicating that demand for these commodities remains very strong despite the global growth concerns.
The star performers last year were agricultural and manganese exports out of the other South African ports, such as Durban and Port Elizabeth, which jumped by 18.7% to 12.2 Mt, but in January 2012 there was a small 1.8% y/y decline to 0.8 Mt, while February 2012 saw a larger 8.5% y/y decline before a recovery to a 7.6% y/y increase in March.
The majority of bulk exports go to Asia as China, India and Japan require South African coal and iron ore to feed their steel mills and thermal coal power stations.
As nuclear power stations in Japan have reduced their output after the March 2011 earthquake, Japan requires more coal to burn in their thermal power stations.
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