By: OrePulse

The Durban Car Terminal handled more than 700,000 vehicles during the 2025/26 financial year, Transnet Port Terminals said, as the state-owned operator set out a series of crane upgrades planned across the Port of Durban.

Transnet disclosed the volume figures during a media visit to the terminal on October 22, 2026. The company said the total, which covered both imported and exported vehicles, highlighted the terminal's importance to South Africa's automotive trade and distribution network. Transnet did not compare the figure with prior-year volumes.

During the visit, Transnet representatives discussed the terminal's vehicle storage capacity, vessel turnaround times, and how terminal operations are coordinated with road and rail transport, according to the company.

Transnet also outlined plans to bring in six new-generation ship-to-shore cranes, with the first units expected to begin arriving in the second quarter of the next financial year. The company said the new cranes will use twin-lift technology, which allows each crane to handle two containers in a single movement, and that the equipment was chosen with an eye toward larger vessels calling at the port and a planned operating life of 20 years. Transnet did not disclose the cost of the crane order.

At the port's Multipurpose Terminal, Transnet said it has already brought in one mobile harbor crane, with three more units due to arrive in the first quarter of 2027. The terminal had two mobile cranes in operation earlier in 2026, the company said, before one was damaged in a fire during June.

Transnet said it is in discussions with the port authority over berth constraints at Durban and is drawing up expansion plans covering Pier 1 and the Multipurpose Terminal. The company did not give a timeline for completing those plans.

Equipment delivered to Pier 2 in 2025 included components for four ship-to-shore cranes meant to replace older machinery, while Pier 1 received new rubber-tyred gantry cranes, Transnet said. The company said additional equipment investment is being considered to further increase cargo-handling capacity at the port, though it did not specify a budget or timetable.