Transnet 'let slip' Saldanha ship repair hub deal

"There is a real lack of commitment coming from Transnet," Western Cape Finance MEC Alan Winde said. Some indication of the potential of the business was that 100 oil rigs passed South Africa each year. Only three were serviced in the country last year, one in Saldanha, which brought in R100 million into the area.

Some years ago, Winde said, he had got Dutch headquartered Universal Africa Lines (UAL) group chief executive Roger Jungblut interested in investing in South Africa. There are different estimates of how much Dutch headquartered Universal Africa Lines (UAL) planned to spend on the oil and gas shipping supply hub, which would serve the shipping line's interests up the African west and east coasts, but Jungblut had subsequently run into a barrage of red tape at Transnet. Winde told Business Report that Jungblut had been driven away. Warwick Blyth, the executive director of the SA Oil and Gas Alliance, has written to the TNPA chief executive, Tau Morwe, expressing concern that Transnet appeared to have let the deal slip. Blyth said the establishment of such a hub would be a key component of the national strategy around the oil and gas sector as set out in Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies' Industrial Policy Action Plan.

In his letter Blyth said that the SA Oil & Gas Alliance are very distressed at the recent failure of Transnet TNPA to conclude an agreement with UAL Shipping and establish a significant regional oil and gas supply complex in Saldanha Bay. The lease approval process had taken 15 months to proceed. "Throughout most of the process [UAL] had no meaningful communication from [the] TNPA," Blyth added. Finally approval came late last year, but the terms of the lease had been changed. As a consequence UAL sent a letter to the TNPA earlier this month declining the opportunity to go ahead with the deal. It is now looking at options to create a supply hub in other African countries, including Mozambique and Namibia. TNPA spokeswoman Lunga Ngcobo said that the matter was too complex to comment on immediately. She promised to raise the matter with legal experts.

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