Richards Bay

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Richards Bay
Richards Bay (South Africa)
Richards Bay
Richards Bay
Coordinates 28 ° 48 ′  S , 32 ° 6 ′  E Coordinates: 28 ° 48 ′  S , 32 ° 6 ′  E
Basic data
Country South Africa

province

KwaZulu-Natal
District King Cetshwayo
ISO 3166-2 ZA-KZN
local community uMhlathuze
height 9 m
Residents 57,387 (2011)
founding 1879
Special features:
port city
Richards Bay
Richards Bay

Richards Bay ( Afrikaans : Richardsbaai ) is a city in the South African province of KwaZulu-Natal . She belongs to the uMhlathuze parish in King Cetshwayo district . In 2001 it had 44,852 and in 2011 57,387 inhabitants. The city is located on the Indian Ocean at about sea level. This is where the Port Richards Bay cargo port is located .

Richards Bay was founded as a port by Sir Frederick Richards in 1879 during the First Boer War . Richards was the namesake of the city. In 1969 Richards Bay got city status.

economy

overview

In Richards Bay, the port with its industrial facilities and tourism are important economic factors. In the vicinity of the Richards Bay lagoon, dunes are mined from heavy mineral sands containing titanium ore ( ilmenite ).

The port facilities are among the largest in the world. On the land side, the area takes up an area of ​​2,157 hectares plus 1,495 hectares of water.

In 1968 it was decided to provide the port with a rail link inland, because the expansion of industrial facilities was progressing as part of the border industry policy of the apartheid government . A line was therefore planned to reach Empangeni . In 1976, the port was expanded into a deep-water port with a train connection and an oil and gas pipeline to Johannesburg .

The administrative headquarters of the national water supplier Mhlathuze Water is located in Richards Bay .

Coal terminal and its transport links

The port's coal terminal ( Richards Bay Coal Terminal ) began operating on April 1, 1976 and is the world's largest coal loading facility . It owes its creation to long-term contracts between South African coal mines and the Japanese steel industry.

Over a long period of time, the railway connections from inland to the port have developed into very efficient transport routes with great importance for the national economy of South Africa. Between 1946 and 1950, sections from Ogies to Broodsnyersplaas were built . In the 1970s, South Africa planned and built on the Richards Bay Coal Line Project , with the aim of transporting coal from Mpumalanga to its own South African port. Previously, loading by ship was preferably possible in Lourenço Marques, which is administered in Portuguese . When Mozambique gained independence in 1975, this route of transport had become politically unsafe for South Africa.

Today (2013) the 580-kilometer double-track line of the Richards Bay Coal Line runs from the coal mining areas of the Witbank region via Blackhill , Ogies , Ermelo , Piet Retief and Vryheid East to Richards Bay. The railway line required the construction of 137 bridges and 37 tunnels. The South African freight transport division Transnet Freight Rail of the state-owned company Transnet planned a further expansion of the delivery lines in 2010 with a budget of 15.4 billion rand .

Aluminum industry

There is an aluminum smelter near the port . The production of aluminum is based on the import of bauxite , because South Africa has no such deposits. Since 1971 the company ALUSAF, a foundation of the Industrial Development Corporation , has been importing the required raw material from Australia .

Phosphate industry and its transport links

The company Triomf Kunsmis began in Richards Bay in 1976 with the processing of Phalaborwa originating phosphate raw materials to phosphoric acid . In 1984 Triomf became Indian Ocean Fertilizer (IOF), which from 1987 was gradually acquired by FOSKOR, the main South African producer of phosphate products, and in 2001 operated under the name Foskor Richards Bay . In addition to phosphoric acid and phosphate granules made from diammonium phosphate (DAP) and monoammonium phosphate (MAP) for fertilizers, sulfuric acid is also produced here. The main customer countries for the products are India , Japan , Mexico , the Netherlands , Bangladesh and Dubai . Today (2013), 84 percent of the phosphate concentrates processed in Phalaborwa reach Richards Bay. In 2010 the plant employed more than 600 people.

The connection of the mining area around Phalaborwa with Richards Bay via a railway line running to the east required a new line to be built within Swaziland , which resulted in individual sections as a result of the political development in southern Africa . A few years after Mozambique gained independence and after the start of the Mozambican civil war , the first section of the line between the South African border town of Golela , with a connection to the South African route network, to a railway junction at Phuzumoya about 6 kilometers east of Siphofaneni in Swaziland was built on November 1, 1978 . A section of the route built earlier, which once enabled trains to operate across the eastern border to Mozambique, led north here.

The necessary and previously missing northern section of the route branches off a few kilometers north of the town of Mpaka from the old railway line and now led to the vicinity of the South African border near Tshaneni , further parallel with the Lebombo Mountains and a section of the border between South Africa and Mozambique to Komatipoort . It went into operation on February 14, 1986. In Komatipoort there was again a connection to the previous South African route network. Since the opening of this section of the Eswatini Railways network (Swaziland Railway until 2018), economic goods from the north, for example from Zimbabwe , Zambia and the eastern parts of South Africa , can be transported to the ports of Richards Bay and Durban .

tourism

The tourism is also an important source of income. There are many opportunities for outdoor sports , including surfing and fishing. In addition, Richards Bay is in the immediate vicinity of the Zululand with its many cultural and natural attractions.

Another important recreational facility is the Richards Bay Game Reserve . The wildlife park is located in a lagoon and provides shelter for water birds, hippos, crocodiles and other animals that were heavily hunted before the park was established. The park's biodiversity is constantly growing, especially among birds. The lagoon is also an important spawning area for many fish.

Daughters and sons of the city

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ 2001 Census Richards Bay Part 1 , 2001 Census Richards Bay Part 2 , 2001 Census Richards Bay Part 3 (added), accessed May 5, 2013
  2. ↑ 2011 census , accessed November 17, 2013
  3. ↑ Richards Bay data from Falling Rain Genomics, accessed August 29, 2011.
  4. ↑ a b c Richards Bay. SA Places, accessed August 30, 2011 .
  5. ↑ a b c Richards Bay Homepage - Information and History. KZN North Coast Happenings, accessed September 1, 2011 .
  6. ^ Mpumalanga to Richards Bay Freight Coal Line, South Africa. on www.railway-technology.com
  7. ^ SAIRR : A Survey of Race Relations in South Africa 1968 . Johannesburg 1969, p. 101.
  8. ↑ Welcom. Richards Bay Coal Terminal, accessed September 1, 2011 .
  9. ^ John Barwell: Richards Bay line breaks weekly coal record . In: International Railway Journal, August 12, 2012 online edition
  10. ↑ Web presence of the Richards Bay Coal Terminal. www.rbct.co.za
  11. ^ Mpumalanga Province, Department of Public Works, Roads and Transport: Mpumalanga Province Freight Data Bank. Historical Development . on www.safiri.co.za
  12. ↑ Willem Kuys: Heavy Haul Operations in South Africa . Conference presentation June 19, 2011. on www.ihha.net ( Memento from October 21, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (PDF; 3.4 MB)
  13. ↑ R15.4 trillion expansion for Richards Bay coal line . In: Mining Review.com, October 28, 2010. on www.miningreview.com  ( page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.miningreview.com  
  14. ↑ Ernst Klimm, Karl-Günther Schneider, Bernd Weise: The southern Africa . Scientific Country Customers; Vol. 17. Wiss. Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1980, p. 152 ISBN 3-534-04132-1
  15. ↑ Foskor: History - key milestones. on www.foskor.co.za ( Memento of the original from March 26, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.foskor.co.za
  16. ↑ FOSKOR: About us. on www.foskor.co.za ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.foskor.co.za
  17. ↑ FOSKOR: At a glance . on www.foskor.co.za ( Memento of the original from September 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.foskor.co.za
  18. ^ Swaziland Railway: History of Swaziland Railway . at www.swazirail.co.sz
  19. ↑ Richards Bay Game Reserve, KwaZulu Natal. SA-Venues.com, accessed September 1, 2011 .