Copper and cobalt miners from the resource-rich Katanga province in southern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) will soon have another outlet to the sea if the joint venture between Angola, Zambia and the DRC to unlock the potential of the Benguela railway comes to fruition.
This follows moves by the three countries in May to establish an agency to oversee the development of a corridor between the port of Lobito in central Angola and across the country to the DRC and Zambia’s Copperbelt.
The Lobito Corridor Management Institution aims to attract freight shippers to Angola’s underused Benguela railway.
Despite fears that the new corridor could siphon mineral traffic away from the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (Tazara) railway from Zambia to Dar es Salaam, and from the southern corridor through Zimbabwe and South Africa, local rail and logistics group Traxtion has come out strongly in its favour.
“We are extremely supportive of this development,” Traxtion CEO James Holley tells the FM. “It’s an outstanding initiative.”
In July 2022, the Angolan government awarded a 30-year concession to commodities trader Trafigura and Portugal-based engineering firm Mota-Engil Engenharia e Construção África to run the railway’s freight trains, Bloomberg News reported.
Traxtion has since been contracted to supply four diesel-electric locomotives to Trafigura for the project, says Holley. The locomotives, now being refurbished, are due to begin work on the line in 2024.
The new corridor’s crown jewel will be the 1,344km Benguela railway which runs from Lobito and across central Angola to the border town of Luau, where it joins the DRC’s SNCC national rail system. The SNCC line runs on to Kolwezi and Lubumbashi, and joins the Zambia rail system at Chingola.
The Benguela railway was privately owned by UK and Belgian firms until the colonial-era concession expired in 2001.
However, much of the line was damaged during the Angolan civil war and no through trains had run since 1975.
After the ceasefire in 2002, the Angolan government contracted the China Railway Construction Corp to rehabilitate the line. Repairs took eight years and cost $1.8bn.
While the railway has been blessed with shiny new stations and new track, its potential has been limited by the appalling state of the track in the DRC.
“The section from Kolwezi to Dilolo needs investment to carry goods traffic,” says Holley.
One rail operator who can attest to the poor state of the track where it crosses through the DRC is Rohan Vos, owner of luxury train operator Rovos Rail, which runs a twice-yearly rail safari from Dar es Salaam to Lobito.
“There is so much expansion in mining output in the DRC and logistics are under strain. We need the additional rail capacity out of the Copperbelt”
— James Holley
On a recent journey on the route, the luxury train suffered numerous delays because of the appalling state of the track.
“We had four derailments in four days,” Vos tells the FM.
Meanwhile, Holley downplays fears that the corridor would be a threat to existing routes, noting that the railways in the region are already running at full capacity.
Traxtion is involved in a joint venture on the Tazara railway, where it provides locomotives and crews to logistics operator Calabash Freight.
“There is so much expansion in mining output in the DRC and logistics are under strain,” he says. “We need the additional rail capacity out of the Copperbelt.”
With logistics in the region “overwhelmingly dominated” by road transport, any expansion in rail will be welcome, Holley says.
Access to a port on the west coast of Africa would also be attractive to many shippers, who would otherwise have to use ports in East or Southern Africa.
“A lot of where cargo flows depends on shipping choices,” Holley says.
While shippers and rail operators hope the DRC will invest in repairs to its line, a new line bypassing the DRC altogether has also been on the cards for nearly a decade.
In 2014, JSE-listed Grindrod announced plans to work with Zambia's Northwest Rail to build and operate the proposed 590km line from Chingola in the Zambian Copperbelt to the Angolan border.
Northwest Rail later signed a new co-operation agreement with UK company Uroven and Transmashholding subsidiary Smart Operations to build the first phase of the line after Grindrod spun off its rail construction subsidiary in 2018.
The feasibility study for the first phase, which covers a $489m line running 166km from Chingola to a new freight terminal at Solwezi in northern Zambia, has been completed.
Due to Covid, however, construction is yet to begin.
The proposed second phase of the project would have seen a new $500m line built from Kalumbila across to the Angolan border, and then along a new branch line from Luacano on the Benguela railway.
The second phase feasibility study has not been considered, Holley says.
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