South Africa desperately needs economic transformation that actually moves the needle. We talk endlessly about black ownership, inclusive growth, and levelling the playing field in strategic sectors. Yet when a ready-made opportunity arrives – one that promises billions in investment, thousands of jobs, and genuine black participation in the fuel value chain – the system finds every possible way to keep it locked in limbo.
That opportunity is Ambrose Park.
This 74-hectare site sits right outside the Port of Durban, deliberately earmarked in the official Transnet Durban Port Master Plan for black-owned companies and economic transformation initiatives in bulk liquid fuels and strategic fuel stock reserves. In 2022, President Cyril Ramaphosa and then Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula publicly launched that master plan, making it crystal clear: Ambrose Park was designed to break the monopoly of oil majors at Island View Terminal and give historically excluded players real access to critical infrastructure.
The plan was sound. The intention was stated at the highest level. The site was vacant and available. So why, more than six years later, does Ambrose Park remain a ghost precinct?
In 2017 and 2018, Transnet signed long-term Build-Own-Operate-Transfer (BOOT) lease agreements with credible black-owned developers. NOOA Petroleum secured a 20-year lease with a 10-year renewal option. Lanele Group signed for 30 years. ICONSTAR and Mainstream were also positioned for development. These were not backroom deals; they followed Transnet Group Property’s standard first-come, first-served process, the same one used for more than 600 leases nationwide.
A multi-disciplinary steering committee – bringing together Transnet Group Property, TNPA, Transnet Pipelines, Transnet Freight Rail, and the tenants – was set up to fast-track infrastructure, utilities, environmental approvals, and municipal plans. It met monthly in Durban. Then, without warning or explanation, the committee was disbanded in December 2018. Progress stopped dead.
In 2019, the then Minister of Energy Jeff Radebe and KwaZulu-Natal Premier Sihle Zikalala were due to officially launch the Ambrose Park terminals. That event was abruptly cancelled by the Minister of Public Enterprises, Pravin Gordhan, who cited a forensic investigation and unspecified allegations. The developers waited. The forensic investigation eventually concluded there was no wrongdoing in the signing of the leases. Still, nothing moved.
Since then, the developers have tried everything: appeals to the Public Protector, representations to the Zondo Commission, submissions to parliamentary portfolio committees on energy, public enterprises, and SCOPA, even a mediation process initiated by NERSA in 2023 – which Transnet refused to join. In October 2025, NOOA Petroleum finally secured a hearing before the joint Parliamentary Portfolio Committees on Trade, Industry and Competition, and Transport, where the pattern of obstruction was laid bare.
Today the situation remains unchanged. Lanele Group is in court. NOOA Petroleum is awaiting an arbitration hearing. Meanwhile, the City of eThekwini and the KwaZulu-Natal provincial government continue to classify Ambrose Park as a catalytic project. The developers have achieved bankability, secured funding commitments from Afreximbank, the Africa Finance Corporation, and local banks, obtained NERSA construction licences, and received environmental authorisation. The project is projected to attract more than R10 billion in investment and create over 2,500 direct and indirect jobs. It would strengthen regional fuel security for Botswana, Lesotho, Eswatini, Zimbabwe, and Zambia.
Yet the single biggest obstacle is the very entity that signed the original leases: Transnet, which now disputes the very agreements it entered into.
This is not bureaucratic inertia. This is deliberate gatekeeping.
Ambrose Park is low-hanging fruit – a shovel-ready project with financing in place, regulatory approvals secured, and political support from local and provincial government. Its continued blockage sends a chilling message to every black entrepreneur who believes government rhetoric about transformation: the doors may look open, but invisible hands still control who gets to walk through.
South Africa cannot afford to keep sabotaging its own opportunities. If we are serious about inclusive growth, we must stop treating black-owned businesses as perpetual outsiders in strategic sectors. Ambrose Park should have been operational years ago. The fact that it is not raises a question Transnet and the Department of Public Enterprises can no longer avoid.
Is this deliberate exclusion?
The answer matters far beyond Durban. It goes to the heart of whether economic transformation is a genuine national priority – or merely a slogan we repeat while the same gatekeepers hold the keys.
It is time to unlock Ambrose Park. The country – and especially the next generation of black industrialists – cannot wait another six years.
Written by Princy Mthombeni – Founder, Africa4Nuclear