Coal Transportation South Africa

[Randy-AEM]

Good day,

Could anyone please point me in the right direction?

I want to enter the Coal Transport market. (I will purchase a couple of Side Tipper Trucks on my current business expense so i am not reliant to land a contract prior to purchase)

I have tried the search function on this forum including 3 days of google... Either I suffer from tunnel vision syndrome or there is a huge lack of info on the internet with regards to landing a Side Tipper/Coal Transport contract. The little info on this forum or on google is too old to use so I would really appreciate some help.

Regards,
Randy

[Houses4Rent]

No idea, maybe ask Eskom how they get their coal.

[Phil Cooper]

You have one major problem...

You will need to get customes OTHER than Eishkom. They (virtually) favour BEE owned small transporters....

[Randy-AEM]

Thank you

[Petrichor]

I would suggest you research the market carefully before acquiring vehicles for the coal market.

In my opinion there is an oversupply of vehicles, which is mainly driven by people who own one or two trucks. Most of these guys do not have the proper understanding or experience of how proper maintenance needs to be performed, what safety aspects to consider and do not necessarily have the required infrastructure to support those vehicles in the long run. The end result is a reliance on brokers, who, in many cases, have milked transporters dry. I have also found a large number of guys who had purchased 2nd hand vehicles for fairly cheap, only to find out that it was very poorly maintained and they need to spend vast amounts to get it up to standard with mining safety requirements before they can even start working.

ROI in the trucking business is no longer what it used to be 5 years ago.

This is just the opinion of one person, so please consider all views from as many sources as possible. I do not want to sound like a doom prophet, but merely would like you to be aware of some of the pitfalls which no one promising contracts would tell you about.

[Randy-AEM]

Thank you for your answer Petrichor.

The trucks will be purchased brand new with plans and warranty's so hopefully that eliminates a certain degree of worry.

With regards to the brokers..... I have noticed many adverts by brokers offering to provide a direct contract with the coal mines while charging a commission.

A 3-5 year contract direct with one of the mines would be great otherwise stuff the coal transport business. I will not make people/brokers wealthy while I'm taking 100% of the risk. #vultures