Sun City, North West

11-12 April, 2012

ABOUT THE CONFERENCE

Trade & Investment South Africa and the Provincial Investment Promotion Agencies are preparing to host the South African International Trade & Investment Conference and Exhibition, themed The African Dialogue from 11 – 12 April, 2012 to be held at Sun City, North West.

This event is an absolutely essential marketing tool to direct attention to the abundant lucrative business prospects in South Africa and the rest of Africa. It will also provide an opportunity for South African and international organizations to forge relationships and form business linkages with key players and decision makers in the various sectors globally.

The conference, exhibition and business matching meetings will serve as a platform to promote Africa as an attractive investment destination, especially in the current global economic environment. South Africa is one of the most advanced and promising emerging markets, not only on the African continent, but globally. The reason for this success is our unique combination of a highly developed economic infrastructure and a huge emerging market economy that has given rise to a strong entrepreneurial and dynamic investment environment.

Today, six of the top ten fastest growing economies are from Africa, with an average growth rate of around 8%. Topics to be discussed will include the Tripartite Free Trade Agreement and its benefits for investors, infrastructure development in the North-South Corridor, the BRICS group of countries and how this relates to trade and investment to the rest of Africa, the legacy of the FIFA World Cup and the investment opportunities currently in Africa. South Africa’s flagship projects, products and services will be showcased to highlight opportunities in the various provinces and sectors. There will also be a special focus on the export potential of South Africa.

The Investment conference attendees will consist of potential investors, CEO’s of Fortune 500 companies, Ministers, multinationals with local representation, as well as selected national and international media.

The Conference (11 – 12 April, 2012)

The Conference will entail plenary sessions and breakaway sector sessions. Content for business presentations will be based on practical business opportunities, funding, trade agreements and incentive schemes. Packaged projects from PIPA’s around South Africa will also be presented, with the focus on ensuring that investors will be able to access the projects.

The conference will incorporate sector breakaway sessions. These will be smaller focused plenary sessions looking at specific sector investment opportunities and will include speakers each representing Ministers, academics and private sector business.

The Exhibition (11 – 12 April, 2012)

The exhibition will provide a platform for government agencies to exhibit their products and services at individual exhibition stands. This will afford both private and public sector exhibitors the opportunity to secure business and developmental opportunities, build partnerships and facilitate collaborative networks.

Business Matching Meetings (11 – 12 April, 2012)

The aim of business matching meetings is to ensure that relevant international businesses are matched with local business. The business matching one-on-one meetings will run parallel to the conference and exhibition at the International Convention Centre. This will ensure ease of access for those delegates attending the conference who are keen to meet specific company representatives for detailed discussions.

All one-on-one meetings will be pre-booked and pre-scheduled to ensure a smooth flow of the consultations between established business and partners. All local companies participating in the sessions will be briefed prior to the meetings giving them advice on how to present their business to potential investors.

Delegates targeted

The event will draw representation from both local and international business sectors and governments.

• President Jacob Zuma
• Foreign Trade Ministers
• Various local Ministers
• Unctad
• CEO’s from Fortune 500 Companies
• Local Business / Private Sector representatives
• Investors
• Exporters
• Foreign importers
• Department of Trade & Industry foreign economic representatives
• Diplomatic community
• Academics
• Chambers of Commerce and Industry
• National and Provincial government departments
• District and local municipalities
• Media

Event Coordination

An events company is also to be appointed in the near future and will take up the responsibility of organising the event. One of their functions will be to set-up a comprehensive website, through which also information sharing will happen. Accommodation bookings, as well as the registration for the business to business meetings will happen through this website. Deloitte & Touche will assist the dti with the knowledge management of the Conference.

For more information please check: http://www.africadialogue2012.org/AFRICADIALOGUE/

R21.3bn set aside to raise container capacity at Durban harbour

South Africa's State-owned Transnet National Ports Authority (TNPA) is planning to spend R21.3-billion on expanding and upgrading the infrastructure of the country's busiest harbour, Durban, in KwaZulu-Natal, over the coming seven years.

The investment programme, which involves a number of separate projects, is designed to create the infrastructure necessary to facilitate an increase in the overall capacity of the port, particularly the capacity of the Durban Container Terminal (DCT). Once completed the yearly container handling capacity of the harbour will rise from around three-million twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) to some five-million TEUs.

The budget forms part of the Transnet group's larger R300-billion investment programme for the period 2012 to 2019, which featured prominently in President Jacob Zuma's recent State of the Nation address.

The TNPA budget also included a set-aside to advance planning for a possible new port at the old Durban International Airport site. But the bulk of the capital would be directed towards reconstructing, upgrading and expanding the existing port infrastructure to cater for the handling of vessels with a capacity of larger than 9 500 TEUs. Such vessels could already enter the harbour's recently enlarged and deepened entrance, but not at full load, owing to depth constraints in the channels, as well as at the berths.

TNPA's Hamilton Nxumalo reports that work is, therefore, progressing on a critical R3.1-billion berth-deepening and reconstruction project on the facility's North Quay, where the intention is to deepen the approaches at berths 205, 204 and 203 from 12.8 m to 16.5 m. The channels would also be widened to 19 m to accommodate the larger ships. But Nxumalo stressed that the final design and capital investment value will only be determined on completion of the environmental-impact assessment (EIA). The EIA record of decision is only anticipated by May 2013, and TNPA is hoping to move the project into the execution phase from June next year.

The project itself, which will involve a large-scale dredging programme as well as a material overhaul of the berths, is only likely to be completed in 2017.

Durban Port manager Ricky Bhikraj says, while the project is in progress, DCT's handling capacity will be negatively affected and planning is, thus, under way to minimise the effects of the outages.

Some of the volumes would be redirected to the Port of Ngqura, in the Eastern Cape, while the balance would be absorbed by other berths within the Durban harbour itself. In fact, several port- and land-side projects were already under way across the harbour to deal with existing bottlenecks. Some of these projects include: a R600-million upgrade of berths two, five and six at Island View; the upgrade of the congested Bayhead road, which should be completed by July; a R1.6-billion upgrade of the long-neglected Maydon Wharf multipurpose berths; and a R148-million scour protection programme.

TNPA's sister company Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) is in the process of procuring mobile crane capacity, which would add operational flexibility during the berth outages. TPT also has an extensive fleet renewal programme of its own for DCT, having recently concluded a deal with Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company, of China, for the supply of seven tandem lift ship-to-shore cranes for the harbour.

New truck booking system for Durban RoRo terminal

Transnet Port Terminals (TPT), the Harbour Carriers Association (HCA) and the South African Association of Freight Forwarders have agreed to pilot a hybrid booking procedure for transporters using the Durban RoRo and Maydon Wharf terminal. The arrangement promises greater flexibility for transporters and would ease road traffic congestion in the Point area, especially around breakbulk commodities, TPT stated.

The agreement was reached through a new transporters’ forum, which started operating in January, aimed at finding a common solution to benefit the port and the road freight association. “Based on our engagement with industry through the new transporters’ forum meetings, TPT and the management of the Durban RoRo terminal have recognised the need for a more innovative approach to managing the fluidity of the terminal. The long dwell times and slow evacuation of cargo led to the need to revise the previous system. With joint collaboration between the terminal and HCA the new hybrid booking system is believed to overcome some of the challenges associated with the previous system,” said Durban RoRo and Maydon Wharf terminal executive Zeph Ndlovu.

Under the new system, to be piloted over a trial period from February 20 until the end of March, transporters arriving at the terminal between 06:00 and 22:00 will be served on a more flexible ‘first come first served’ basis, excluding weekends and public holidays. However, during the underutilised night shift, weekends and public holidays, the prebooked timeslot system would still apply.

On arrival, trucks will be allocated a position number, through an entry register, which will be prefixed with a date stamp. The trucks will then be staged at the designated area that can accommodate a maximum of 20 trucks and called out sequentially and directed to off-load areas. The average turnaround time would be 45 minutes.

TPT said continuous communication between the truck staging area and operations team would minimise equipment idle time and that the terminal reserves the right to call in trucks from the queue based on equipment availability.

Currently, truckers were expected to comply with prebooked arrival timeslots stipulated by TPT, based on physical capacity and equipment availability.

However, TPT pointed out that this was becoming problematic, as transporters were allocated widely varying time slots and queuing for hours, with late arrivals also severely affecting the system.

Failure to arrive, equipment downtime and administration delays also often slowed the process.

in Engineering News, February 2012

Anew ‘Green Jobs’ report estimates that some 130 023 direct jobs could be created by South Africa’s renewable energy sector by 2025, but only if the renewables allocation outlined in the current Integrated Resource Plan (IRP) 2010–2030 is materially expanded

The IRP for electricity, which was released in the beginning of 2011, envisages that independent power producers (IPPs) and State utility Eskom will build a combined renewables base of 17 800 MW by 2030, or about 42% of the new generation capacity to be added by that date. But a new report, produced jointly by the Industrial Development Corporation (IDC) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), argues that the potential for concentrating solar power (CSP) is larger than that envisaged in the current version of the IRP, as is the case for a number of other technologies not currently covered by the generation plan.

The 170-page document, released in Johannesburg at a function presided over by Economic Development Minister Ebrahim Patel, premises its jobs calculations on a renewables deployment that is 8 720 MW larger than the one proposed in the IRP. Co authors Jorge Maia, of the IDC, and David Jarvis, of the DBSA, stress, however, that the expansion path outlined in the ‘Green Jobs’ report does not address the cost issues related to such an upscaling. Instead, the outcomes are premised on the assumption that the costs of renewables will fall, while the reliability of less mature technologies, such as CSP, will rise.

Patel says the only firm renewables planning relates to the procurement of the first 3 725 MW of capacity from IPPs, as well as Eskom’s plan to build a 100 MW wind farm in the Western Cape and a further 100 MW CSP facility near Upington, in the Northern Cape.

But he stresses that the IRP will be revised from time to time and future versions will take account of changes in technologies and costs.

The report argues that wind and cogeneration are the dominant short-term solutions, but that, in the longer term, solar technologies, including photovoltaic solutions, could play a more significant role, owing to South Africa ’s significant solar resources.

The potential for direct manufacturing jobs related the renewables programmes in South Africa and the region is also considered to be large at around 22 566 jobs. But these benefits will only flow from policies that insist on local content, as well as from the development of a relevant skills base and the creation of a market with the economies of scale necessary to foster the development of industries able to produce systems and components for the renewables sector. Overall, the report, which interrogated 26 green technologies or areas, says there is an opportunity to create 98 000 new direct jobs in the short term and around 462 000 employment opportunities in the formal economy by 2025 by pursuing efforts to green the South African economy.

The bulk of these prospects are said to reside in the area of natural resource management, where some 232 926 jobs, or 50.4% of the total, could be created through employing people to conserve and restore ecosystems, such as grasslands and wetlands, or to improve soil and land management.

New direct employment opportunities in energy and resource efficiency activities are expected to contribute almost 68 000 jobs, or just under 15% of the total, while activities associated with emissions and pollution mitigation are expected to result in about 32 000 in the long term. Patel argues that, in the context of the problems associated with climate change and the prevailing economic uncertainties, new models for economic development are required and new sources of jobs growth have to be generated.

An analysis of green-economy experiences elsewhere “points towards an extraordinary opportunity for South Africa” to pursue a “job-rich new growth path”.

He also cautions that the transition will be key to South Africa’s future competitiveness, particularly as consumers begin to demand that products and services they buy are less damaging to the environment. As a relatively large carbon emitter, South Africa, therefore, should seek to foster a “green value proposition” to sustain the competitiveness of its exports.

in Engineering News

State-owned freight logistics group Transnet took delivery of its new multiproduct pipeline (NMPP), which runs between the coastal city of Durban and Jameson Park, near Heidelberg, south of Johannesburg. The pipeline, which would be commissioned in stages over the coming 18 months, is currently handling the delivery of diesel fuel to South Africa’s economic heartland of Gauteng.

The NMPP, which has been designed to handle various transport fuels, would eventually replace the aged Durban-to-Johannesburg pipeline, which was completed in 1965 and was nearing the end of its economically usable life.

The 555-km, 24-inch NMPP would initially work in conjunction with the old pipeline, until Terminal 1 at Island View, in Durban, and Terminal 2 at Jameson Park were fully completed in 2013.

The first product began flowing into the Gauteng fuel pipeline network, which connects at Jameson Park, when Transnet group CEO Brian Molefe opened a valve on the NMPP.

The Gauteng fuel pipeline network had also been upgraded in conjunction with the construction of the trunk line. This secondary network comprises a 16-inch pipeline network, linking Gauteng fuel depots between Kendal and Waltloo, Jameson Park and Alrode and Alrode and Langlaagte.

“We have completed one of the most cutting-edge and innovative infrastructure investments in the world. Transnet is today fulfilling two commitments, by ensuring that the inland market demand for fuel is met, and to ease road congestion by reducing the number of fuel tankers on our roads,” Molefe said.

However, Molefe also indicated that the pipeline’s price tag of R23.4-billion would now need to be recovered. In addition to last year’s pipeline tariff increase 59.9% Transnet had already applied to the National Energy Regulator of South Africa for a further 22% increase.

The state-of-the-art pipeline would transport refined fuel products such as unleaded 93 and 95 octane petrol, low sulphur and ultralow sulphur diesel and jet fuel at a rate of about three-million litres an hour. The capacity of the line would be 26.7-billion litres of fuel a year.

Currently the pipeline uses three pumping stations, namely Tweni in Durban, Hilltop near Pietermaritzburg and Mnambithi pump station near Ladysmith. Two metering stations are also included.

Transnet pipelines CEO Charl Möller pointed out that the project had been designed with expansion in mind.

“The pipeline would be upgraded in five phases up to 2032 with the addition of more pumping stations and metering stations along the trunk line. In this way we would be able to expand the pipeline capacity by up to 200%, to keep up with the expected demand growth,” he said.

He added that although the pipeline could currently only operate at half of its Phase 1 desing capacity, owing to the storage terminal at Jameson Park not being finished, and could also only carry a single product, the pipeline would come into its own once the terminals came on line.

The completed pipeline, as well as the two terminals under construction, had been designated as national key points, which would help ensure fuel supply security. The NMPP would also be able to provide fuel product for three days, should there be a supply interruption.

The pipeline was expected to be economically active for the next 80 years and provide permanent jobs for at least 110 people.

The project used a groundbreaking technology to prime the completed empty pipe, using nitrogen to counter backpressure encountered on the steep downgrades where the pipeline comes down Van Reenen’s pass on the escarpment. It was also dried at -20 ˚C, to ensure that no water or other liquids remained in the pipe that could lead to contamination.

Further, the pipeline, which is constructed form the highest available grade steel, was laid in 1.5-deep trenches along most of its route, except where it had to cross other existing infrastructure and rivers, as well as a number of large ecologically sensitive wetlands.

Source: Engineering News, 11 January 2012