Long-term concessions, unified governance and transparent metrics are essential to restoring rail performance and rebuilding investor confidence, says consultancy Oliver Wyman energy and natural resources partner Mark Evans.

Evans will present the Investing in African Mining Indaba session titled ‘Private Sector Participation and the path to reviving South Africa’s rail and port logistics: Presented by Oliver Wyman’ on February 9, at the Serengeti Stage of the Cape Town International Convention Centre.

As the countdown to the 2026 Mining Indaba starts, the future of South Africa’s rail and port corridors is set to dominate the conference’s agenda and with miners facing persistent constraints on export volumes, logistics reform has become central to investment sentiment and sector competitiveness, he notes.

Against this backdrop, Evans argues that credible public-private collaboration represents the most immediate path towards stabilising and eventually expanding bulk-commodity export throughput.

A decisive shift towards private-sector participation (PSP) can provide the capital depth, technical capability and operational discipline needed to reverse years of decline in the freight system, he explains.

“PSP brings capital, technical capacity and commercial accountability to restore throughput quickly, with success measured in throughput, that is million tonnes per year moved; capacity use and total logistics costs for every tonne.”

His view reflects growing industry pressure for a more transparent, metrics-driven approach to rail recovery.

Further, Evans highlights that robust PSP structures allow for investments to be targeted at mission-critical bottlenecks. He also emphasises that consortium-led PSP models – combining miners, original-equipment manufacturers (OEMs), logistics specialists and financiers – can align incentives more effectively than the State alone.

These partnerships will also establish clear performance obligations for reliability, turnaround times and cost-to-serve, as he stresses that proprietary and opaque measurements will no longer suffice.

Year-on-year benchmarking of mine throughput, rail design-capacity use and full logistics cost must be publicly disclosed to demonstrate genuine structural improvement, says Evans.

Proven Rail Frameworks

Globally, several PSP models offer lessons for South Africa’s emerging PSP framework, with Evans highlighting long-term concessions and blended public-private financing structures as the most credible vehicles for integrating miners into rail corridor governance and operations.

Internationally successful variants include vertically integrated concessions, where a dedicated special purpose vehicle (SPV) manages infrastructure, traffic control and operations, as well as functionally separated arrangements in which a private train operating company runs services while the State or a separate SPV retains infrastructure responsibility.

In all cases, he says offtake-linked commitments, availability-based payments and blended finance arrangements have proven important to equitable risk-sharing.

Oliver Wyman’s recent analysis of the critical Northern Corridor, which links coal producers to Richards Bay, reinforces this perspective. Evans argues that simply allowing private trains onto the network is insufficient; instead, he advocates for a concession model where a consortium of miners, OEMs, and financiers holds a controlling interest in both the rail network and traffic control.

This deeper level of participation, going beyond mere operational access, is the only pathway to balance rapid implementation with long-term financial viability. It preserves State ownership of the assets while introducing the commercial discipline and life-cycle investment required to permanently resolve maintenance backlogs.

However, restoring investor confidence in major rail networks requires more than structural design, with Evans emphasising the need for immediate and visible action.

In this regard, short-term rehabilitation plans must be transparent, data-driven and linked to a clear sequencing of urgent capital expenditure.

Nonetheless, interim third-party rail access rules and predictable scheduling protocols are essential for miners to plan exports reliably, he adds.

In the medium term, reforms must include a transparent procurement timeline for PSP concessions, strengthened regulatory capacity, enforceable open-access and tariff frameworks, and contract structures that reward capacity uplift and sustained maintenance.

Equally important is a unified collaboration between the State, freight users, financiers and operators, elaborates Evans.

Beyond South Africa’s borders, Evans highlights that logistics recovery must be viewed through a regional lens. He suggests that neighbouring countries and South Africa should pursue interconnected, multi-country logistics corridors to enhance trade resilience.

By pooling volumes across borders and negotiating cross-country offtake agreements, the region can create larger, more bankable projects that are less susceptible to single-country risks. Evans notes that South African miners can play a supporting role here, offering terminal expertise and rolling stock maintenance to help design multimodal corridors that serve the entire region's mineral export ambition.

“A package of credible near-term actions, backed by multi-stakeholder governance and early-stage derisking is essential to convert private interest into bankable commitments. Without this alignment, private capital will continue to hesitate,” he concludes.