In particular fourth-quarter bulk exports were up 5.6% year-on-year (y/y) after a poor first three quarters when the increase was only 1.5% y/y.
This bodes well for fourth-quarter gross domestic product data‚ which will be released on 24 February. The fourth-quarter jump was in large measure due to a 20.8% y/y surge from Saldanha.
As the Richards Bay Coal Terminal (RBCT) no longer releases operational statistics‚ economists are finding it more difficult to track economic performance in SA in a timeous manner. Bulk exports out of Richards Bay fell by 2.4% y/y in the fourth quarter‚ but this includes some noncoal bulk exports.
Bulk exports‚ which are mainly mining and agricultural commodities‚ have been hit hard by industrial action in these sectors in the past three years.
In 2010 for instance bulk exports rose by 9% despite the global downturn in the wake of the 2008 Lehman Brothers bankruptcy and this was followed by a 6.8% gain in 2011.
In the first nine months of 2012 bulk exports were up 9.2% y/y before industrial action in the mining sector curtailed exports so that the full-year increase was only 4.8%. The large-scale industrial action continued in the subsequent two years so the 2013 rise was only 2.8%.
Exports out of Richards Bay‚ which are mostly coal‚ rose by only 1.0% in 2014 to 85.9-Mt. Exports out of Saldanha‚ which are mostly iron ore‚ increased by 5.3% to 56.2-Mt‚ while exports out of all other ports grew by 1.7% to 14.4-Mt.
The majority of bulk exports goes to Asia as China‚ India‚ Japan and South Korea require South African coal and iron ore to feed their steel mills and thermal coal power stations.
Source: BDpro via I-Net Bridge
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