Colombia's Fenoco aims to move 52 mil mt coal in 2.012

Colombian private railway company Fenoco expects to transport 52 million mt of coal in 2.012, almost 10 million mt more than the previous year, Fenoco president Peter Burrowes told the press.

Fenoco, whose major shareholders include Colombia's biggest thermal coal producers Glencore, Drummond, Goldman Sachs and Vale, extends for 226 km (140 miles) through the northern part of the country and is mainly used to transport thermal coal from mines to ports on the Atlantic coast.

According to Burrowes, construction of a second parallel line of the railway is almost finished, with only about 45 km to be completed.

He added that under the current conditions, once the second line is finished, transport capacity could be expanded to 120 million mt/year of coal. 

The Fenoco second line has cost $180 million to date, with $80 million of investment to go, all coming from the major shareholders of the company.

"We have made a lot of investment especially in software and security which allows us to be more efficient, where efficiency and security are synonymous with more capacity in the line, at least while we solve the problem of the second rail line," Burrowes said.

Construction of the last 45 km stretch of the line has been halted due to displaced people from the Magdalena region in northern Colombia having settled on the planned railway route because of the violence in that part of the country.

Burrowes said that the company is waiting for permission from the government to move the settled people to a new location.

"We are working on it, and unfortunately there is no exact date [when the relocation will be done] because we are talking about human beings, and it takes time and certain conditions that don't make the situation black and white," Burrowes said.

Fenoco started in 2.000 by taking over the government management, with a majority stake being held by the Spanish construction company Dragados SA.

In 2.006, the thermal coal producers operating in northern Colombia bought out Dragados SA and focused the railway's operation to service their coal mines in the Cesar region and link them to the ports on the Atlantic coast.