A strike launched last week by the two main labor unions for employees of South African state-owned ports and rail operator Transnet has led to a growing backlog of ships waiting for berths off the country’s main ports. As negotiations between Transnet, the United National Transport Union, South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, and South Africa’s employment and labor minister Thulas Nxesi remain in deadlock, the backlog continues to grow. Transnet operates dry bulk, container, and roro terminals at all South African ports, where it also has a monopoly on most ancillary port services.

Transnet also operates the freight rail services that feed into the ports. These have also been hit by labor action. The strike has directly affected all terminals operated by Transnet, which on Wednesday said had impacted a total of 28 vessels. The company, which has declared Force Majeure, did not specify what vessels were impacted, nor their type. Private dry bulk terminals have not been directly affected by the strike, although they have been indirectly impacted by the strike’s effect on rail services bringing iron ore and coal into their terminals. The ports of Richards Bay and Saldanha Bay, South Africa’s largest dry bulk export facilities, have seen a growing number of ships waiting in their anchorages, racking up hefty demurrage bills for charterers. Online vessel tracking database Marine Traffic showed on Thursday that there were 15 bulkers docked, and another 29 anchored off Richards Bay, the country’s main coal exporting port. Saldanha Bay, an iron ore port that mostly handles capesize vessels, has four bulkers alongside and another eight anchored offshore waiting to load. The ports of Durban and Cape Town each have a large and growing mix of bulkers, container ships and roros lingering in limbo outside port limits.

Transnet’s workers are demanding a wage increase of between 12% and 13.5%, across the board which they claim is in line with South Africa’s inflation rate. The company has so far offered increases of between 4% and 5%, which the unions have called “insulting”. Transnet, in its latest update on the strike action, said it was “committed to a speedy resolution to the impasse” and that it continued to “work closely with the shipping lines and industry broadly to manage the current situation” and “remains fully committed to moving customers’ cargo as efficiently as possible”. The soothing words of Transnet’s press releases have done little to reassure South African exporters. The country’s agricultural sector industry associations have told local media that they are extremely concerned that the strike will have a “calamitous impact” on the upcoming grape and stone fruit seasons if the strike is not quickly resolved.

Anglo-American’s Kumba Iron Ore, the fourth largest iron ore producer in the world, and the largest in Africa, estimated on Wednesday that the impact of the strike on production has been approximately 50,000 tonnes per day for the first seven days, and expects it will rise to approximately 90,000 tonnes per day as the strike continues. Export sales were estimated to have been impacted by approximately 120,000 tonnes per day.