Benguela – Around 120 thousand tons of mineral products, particularly copper and manganese, are transported annually by the Congo National Railway Society (SNCC), through the Lobito Corridor, for export, ANGOP learned.
These are ores explored in the Kisenge mines, in the province of Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which are being transported by SNCC to this railway corridor to the Port of Lobito, from where they are exported to the international market.
This announcement was made on Wednesday, by the representative of the Minister of Transport, Communications and Accessibility of the DRC, Roger Tea-Biasu, during the second meeting of the Committee of Ministers of the Lobinho Corridor Transit Transport Facilitation Agency (LCTTFA ).
The result of a tripartite partnership between Angola, DRC and Zambia, whose agreement was signed on January 27, 2023, LCTTFA proposes to boost the circulation of goods along the Lobito Corridor, mainly minerals, and promote the mobility of citizens of the members.
Speaking at the meeting, held in the city of Lobito, headquarters of LCTTFA, Roger Tea-Biasu revealed how the Lobito Corridor is boosting the transport of ores from Katanga exploration, in the descending direction (Luau/Lobito), destined for the international market .
Conversely, it also revealed the entry per year of 75 thousand tons of mineral inputs, including sulfur, to the DRC, upwards (Lobito/Luau), aiming to meet the needs of Katanga mine operators.
Roger Tea-Biasu said the DRC Government recognizes the particular importance of the Lobito Corridor development project, the reopening of which, he recalled, had long been awaited by mineral explorers in the great province of Katanga.
Because, according to him, the big advantage is the short distance of 1,675 kilometers that separate the mining city of Kolwesi, in the DRC, to the Commercial Port of Lobito, on the coast of Angola.
In fact, he admitted that transport costs are, in fact, very competitive compared to other corridors in the sub-region, also used by the DRC, in a clear reference to the Beira (Maputo) and Walvis Bay (Namibia) corridors.
An example of this is the Canadian company Ivanhoe Mines, which explores the Kamoa-Kakula copper mines, in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), which, with the use of the Lobito railway corridor, at the end of 2023, following a commercial agreement with the concessionaire - Lobito Atlantic Railway (LAR) - saw the travel time to the Port of Lobito reduced to 20 days, from where they dispatch ten thousand tons of copper concentrate to the international market.
Previously, Ivanhoe Mines took up to 50 days for a round-trip road trip from Kamoa-Kakula to the ports of Durban (South Africa), Walvis Bay (Namibia), Beira (Mozambique) and Dar-es-Salaam (Tanzania).
Therefore, the representative of the Congolese Minister of Transport stated that this transformative project fits into the DRC's economic development plan, given the reduced transport costs.
In addition to these advantages, he anticipates that the Lobito Corridor could have a significant impact on preserving the environment, by reducing gas emissions and transferring large quantities of goods from roads to rail.
Thus, Roger Tea-Biasu saluted the leadership of the Southern African Development Community (SADC), which spared no efforts to materialize the Lobito Corridor project.
DRC reiterates commitment
Roger Tea-Biasu also considered the signing, in January 2023, of the tripartite agreement creating the LCTTFA as an important milestone, ten years after the first ministerial meeting on the Lobito Corridor, held by SADC in 2013.
Another turning point, he noted, is the multilateral agreement that Angola, DRC and Zambia signed in October 2023 with the US Government, the European Union, the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Africa Finance Corporation (AFC).
As he said, the objective of this multilateral agreement is to mobilize the necessary funding for the construction of the Lobito Corridor, vital for regional connectivity.
In this way, it ensures the ratification of these agreements by the Government of the DRC, which has also created a national technical committee, in charge of the materialization of this program and other projects linked to this partnership.
He also took the opportunity to point out the commitment of the President of the DRC, Félix Tshisekedi, in the implementation of the project, for the well-being, not only of the Congolese population, but also of all the countries covered by the Lobito Corridor.
Regarding the meeting of LCTTFA ministers, he expressed the DRC's commitment to adopt the recommendations of the meeting as if it were a development plan.
The challenge, he stressed, is to ensure the operability of the Lobito Corridor, in order to offer operators facilities in transactions and strengthen trade between the three member countries of this logistics infrastructure. JH/CRB/DOJ
