On 4 October 2024, LEX Africa’s member in Angola, FBL Advogados, in collaboration with LEX Africa and Abreu Advogados, organised a conference on the Lobito Corridor project which brought together more than 200 participants in Luanda, Angola. Speakers included the Angolan Minister of Transport, Ricardo Viegas d’Abreu and the focus of the discussions were on the opportunities created by the Corridor.
The Lobito Corridor project stretches 1300 km from the Angolan port of Lobito on Africa’s Atlantic coast to the city of Kolwezi in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and will connect the southern regions of the DRC and north-western Zambia to regional and global trade markets via Lobito. The Minister stressed that the Lobito Corridor was more than simply an infrastructure project and stressed that it involved development opportunities for African countries and economic diversification.
The project involves roads, railways, bridges, clean solar energy and fibreoptic cables for internet access and will help reduce transport costs and make Angola more attractive as an investment destination for the mining, energy, industrial, telecommunications, agribusiness and other sectors. Over USD1 billion has been mobilised from various funders including the USA Government, the European Commission, the African Development Bank, the Africa Finance Corporation and South Africa’s Development Bank of Southern Africa. The project has also successfully leveraged the advantages of public-private partnerships (PPPs) and a consortium of Trafigura, Portugal’s Mota-Engil and Belgium’s Vecturis have been awarded the contract to manage railway services and support the logistics of the project. There are also plans to link the Corridor to the Indian Ocean through Tanzania to connect West and East Africa by rail for the first time.
The project will provide efficient and reliable transportation of copper, cobalt, and other sought-after minerals from the DRC and Zambia to international markets via Lobito and will play a role in supporting energy transition by facilitating the export of critical minerals needed for renewable energy technologies. The International Energy Agency has estimated that between 2020 and 2040, demand for nickel and cobalt will increase by 20 times, graphite by 25 times, and lithium by more than 40 times. Access to critical minerals is crucial to facilitate the transition away from fossil fuels and is fundamental to new technology developments.
The mineral wealth along the Lobito Corridor includes the DRC’s gold, copper and cobalt reserves and Zambian copper. Besides its vast oil reserves, Angola possesses 26 of the 51 most sought-after minerals in the world, including cobalt, chromium, graphite, lead, lithium, and nickel. There is increasing global competition for access to these minerals including between the USA, Europe and China. Chinese companies are estimated to control about 70% of the DRC’s mining sector including about two thirds of DRC’s output of cobalt, an essential mineral in the manufacture of electric vehicles. The upgrade of the Tazara railway (which the Chinese built during the 1970’s) between Zambia and Tanzania is an important infrastructure project for exporting these minerals to China.
In his welcome address to the conference, LEX Africa’s chairperson, Pieter Steyn, noted that it was important that the Corridor was not based on a purely extractive model for mineral exports out of Africa but had important developmental goals which were in line with the principles of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA). This laid the basis for closer trade and business links between Angola, the DRC, Zambia, Tanzania and other African countries which could strengthen African supply chains and trade and investment between African countries. This would be a key measure of the project’s success, said Steyn.
LEX Africa’s new oil and gas guide was formally launched at the conference and covers legal and regulatory issues in 18 African countries.
The conference also marked the 20th anniversary of FBL Advogados, LEX Africa’s Angolan member. “We celebrate 20 years of history, with our eyes on the future. This conference dealt with the opportunities and challenges that await us, always with the ambition of contributing to the growth and sustainable development of Angola and Africa”, noted Fernando Faria de Bastos, the founding partner of FBL Advogados.
