By: Mining.com

Angola is seeking $4.5 billion in funding to build an ambitious rail link to neighboring Zambia’s copper-rich region, Transport Minister Ricardo Viegas d’Abreu said.

Italy has committed $320 million to the plan and African Development Bank $500 million, he told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of a conference in Luanda, Angola’s capital. The Egyptian government this week expressed interest in financing the project, he said.

The new Zambian spur forms part of a much bigger project known as the Lobito Corridor that seeks to connect the region, boosting trade in minerals as well as agriculture.

The cost estimate for the US-backed rail project is significantly higher than previous ones for the 800-kilometer project, on which construction is set to start next year. The Africa Finance Corp., which won the concession to oversee it, has avoided putting a price tag before it puts the work out to tender in the coming months.

The project will connect Zambia’s copper mines to an existing Lobito line that runs from the Atlantic port city into the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The new link will be the biggest rail investment Zambia’s seen since the 1970s, when China helped build another railway that links the Copperbelt to an Indian Ocean port. It comes at a time when the southern African nation and neighboring Congo ramp up copper output to meet rising global demand at a time of record prices for the metal used in electric wiring.

The European Union has also shown interest in financing the Zambia-Lobito link, d’Abreu said, without providing specifics.

While the US under former President Joe Biden backed the Lobito corridor project that’s centered along an existing rail line from an Angolan port to mines in Congo, support has been slow. The US International Development Finance Corp. in June 2024 approved a $553 million loan for the Angolan section, but that money is yet to flow.