National Railways of Zimbabwe to transport bulk fuel and gas

Story by Lisa Masuku

THE National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) is on the road to recovery in the wake of revelations that it is ready to transport bulk petroleum gas and fuel after sealing partnerships with local players in the sector.

NRZ public relations manager, Mr Andrew Kunambura confirmed that the company’s partnership with ZimGas has paved the way for the refurbishment of NRZ’s tankers.

“As an organisation, we have entered into Private Public Partnerships with various players in the mining and fuel sector. One of these partnerships involves our engagement with Zim-Gas. As you know Zim-Gas is a bulk importer of Petroleum gas. They move a lot of this gas through the Maputo and Beira ports.

“We agreed that to enhance capacity we needed to refurbish our fuel tankers so that they can be able to import more gas. As you know we are a mover of bulk goods, in terms of equipment we needed to add capacity to what we had,” he said.

Mr Kunambura added, “The partnership involved the rehabilitation and refurbishment of tankers which will be able to import more gas. We have so far refurbished 8 of the 16 tankers. We can say so far we are at 50%.”

NRZ has also entered into yet another partnership for transporting fuel.

He further noted, “We have also entered into another partnership for the refurbishment of tankers of fuel. This has seen 53 of 100 fuel tankers being refurbished. We are at 50%. The remaining are under refurbishment in addition to that we have other similar arrangements with mining companies.”

The parastatal has identified partnerships as a viable strategy for recapitalisation.