Funders commit $1.3 billion to Zambia critical minerals rail

The Africa Finance Corp. and the African Development Bank committed $500 million each to a railway that will connect Zambia’s copper mines to global markets through the Angolan port of Lobito.

In addition, Italy will provide $320 million for the project, AFC executive director and chief investment officer Sameh Shenouda said at a conference in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, on Thursday. The pan-African lender is lead developer and sponsor of the project.

The 830-kilometer (515-mile) railway will cost as much as $5 billion, with construction set to start this year and completion slated for 2030.

“For this project to be viable, we need offtakes of around 2.5 million to 3 million tons,” Shenouda said. “We already have commitments for a million tons and we have clear visibility to get to 5 million tons.”

The US and the European Union have cast the Lobito Corridor project as a flagship initiative to counter China’s growing influence in Africa, while securing access to metals critical to electric vehicle batteries as well as the defense and aerospace industries, including copper and cobalt.

The project has two main components: the refurbishment of an existing rail line linking the Atlantic port of Lobito to southern Democratic Republic of Congo, and the plan to build the new railway that extends into Zambia’s Northwestern province and Copperbelt provinces.

The Zambian spur will be the biggest new build in that country since the 1970s, when China helped finance and construct a line running eastward from the copper-mining region to an Indian Ocean port in Tanzania.

Nine engineering, procurement and construction contractors from different countries visited the Zambian railway project site two weeks ago, Shenouda said. The companies will submit bids in May and the evaluation process is expected to be completed later this year, he said.

“We will select the EPC contractor by July or August and we will break ground before the end of the year or maybe the first month of 2027,” Shenouda said.

Financial close is expected in the fourth quarter of 2027, according to the Lagos-based lender. Upon completion, it will cut cargo travel time to seven days from 16 days and have an economic impact of about $3 billion for Angola and Zambia, it said.

(By Eric Ombok)