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Mauritania plans substantial rolling stock procurements

17 January 2025
Reading time ~ 1 min
SNIM's locomotives in Mauritania
SNIM's locomotives in Mauritania. Source: Georg Trüb/Railpictures
Krechetov Dmitry, Editorial Contributor
Reading time ~ 1 min
Yashchenko Olga, Editorial Contributor to International Projects, ROLLINGSTOCK Agency

Mauritania: The African Development Bank, AfDB, has approved a $150 mln loan to fund the logistics expansion programme of the state-owned iron ore mining company SNIM.

The purpose of the company’s programme, worth $467 mln in total, is to double the capacity of its railway by 2030. It involves the acquisition of up to 36 locomotives and 1,743 wagons, as well as upgrading the infrastructure and construction of additional passing loops and stations.

SNIM is the operator of the country’s only railway line of 704 km, which is mainly used for transportation of 14–16 mln tonnes of iron ore to the port of Nouadhibou annually. The company’s fleet comprises around 1,200 gondola cars with a payload between 84 and 97 t, and over 40 diesel locomotives from the American manufacturer EMD. The majority are the four-axle GPL15T and the six-axle SDL40-2 locomotives, produced in the 1980s and overhauled between 1993 and 2008 for desert operations. Additionally, EMD provided the operator with six new SD70ACS locomotives in 2011 and 2012.

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