Coal-hungry Asia helps Mozambique city boom FEATURE 01/20/2011

Coal-hungry Asia helps Mozambique city boom

FEATURE

01/20/2011
TETE — Trucks queue day and night to cross the heavy bridge that spans the Zambezi river at Tete city in northern Mozambique, where rich coalfields lie ready to fuel energy-hungry Asia.

But moving the coal out is a logistical nightmare.

Miners and drivers wait patiently in peak hour traffic stretching back four kilometers (2.5 miles) as vehicles slowly advance on a one-way track, the direction of which changes every 30 minutes, to the other side of the river.

At the western side of the crossing lie Mozambique’s massive, relatively untapped coal reserves, estimated at 23 billion tons. On the other side is the road to Beira, a central port where the black stuff can be transported globally across the Indian Ocean..... MORE

Source:  The Daily Tribune

URL: http://www.tribuneonline.org/commentary/20110120com3.html