South African rail utility Transnet announced that its northeastern rail lines have been disrupted by heavy rains in a brief statement.

Transnets's North East Corridor links South Africa to Swaziland, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Zambia and the DRC.  

Exports via Mozambique have become a key corridor for minerals exports out of South Africa over the last decade as logistic constraints (largely due to inefficiencies and structural issues at Transnet) have caused bottlenecks for typical supply chain routes via Durban and Richards Bay.

For chromium ores and concentrates Mozambique accounted for over 40% of total exports in 2022, making it the single largest port of export for the commodity out of South Africa. South Africa supplies over 60% of chromium and accounts for over 80% of supply to China to feed its stainless steel industry.

Project Blue expects economic recovery in China in 2023 and for steel production also to improve.  As such, infrastructure bottlenecks will put the already strained supply chain for chromium ores under further pressure if the damaged rail routes include those relevant to get to ores to Maputo in Mozambique.