Dow Jones reported that Eurasian Natural Resources PLC is developing a coal logistics corridor in northern Mozambique to ship coal from the coal rich Tete Basin to the coast, to be completed by 2015.

Mr Paul Craven the company's general manager told Dow Jones Newswires on the sideline of a mining Indaba conference that the FTSE-100 miner is the lead developer of a logistics system that involves the construction of a 60 million tonne a year railway line, and a port at Nacala that is able to handle up to a similar amount of tonnage a year.

He said ENRC's port would be adjacent to Vale's port. It would have an initial nameplate capacity of 40 million tonnes a year with the capacity to handle up to 60 million tonnes. It could then be expanded to 100 million tons at a later date.

Mr Craven said the cost of developing the line would be cheaper than the USD 4 billion that Brazilian miner Vale SA is spending to develop its own 18 million tonne a year railway line to Nacala.

Mr Craven said the railway would be wholly contained within Mozambique. ENRC evaluated an option to cut through Malawi to reach the coast but found that a wholly contained Mozambique option was not only shorter but cheaper. He said the Mozambique proposal was technically less difficult and the company would be using Australian and Canadian technology in order to develop the logistics system, which will be open to third parties.

(Soured from Dow Jones Newswires)