Copper and cobalt pulled from the mines of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia’s Copperbelt have for decades travelled east or south to reach the sea, along congested roads and ageing rail lines to ports in Tanzania, Mozambique, and South Africa.

This journey can take three weeks or more and has long added cost, risk, and delay to some of the world’s most sought-after minerals. But now, a different route is taking shape. It runs west instead, and is drawing in Washington, Brussels, and a coalition of African governments, perhaps in a way few infrastructure projects on the continent ever have.

The Lobito Corridor links the Atlantic port of Lobito, on Angola’s coast, through the Angolan interior to the DRC border, with a planned extension into Zambia’s Copperbelt, which is still under construction.

At its core is a 1,300-kilometre railway, the Lobito Atlantic Railway, run under a 30-year concession, extendable to 50 years, by a joint venture between the construction group Mota-Engil, the commodities trader Trafigura, and the Belgian rail operator Vecturis.

Early this month, the project closed in on a $753 million financing package, which will fund the rehabilitation, modernisation, and long-term operation of the line. It had been a years-long wait. But the railway itself is far from new.

Its origins lie in the Benguela Railway, begun in 1902 under the direction of the Scottish mining financier Sir Robert Williams, whose Tanganyika Concessions counted Cecil Rhodes among its backers, and built with the explicit purpose of connecting Central African copper to the Atlantic.

Construction took nearly thirty years, delayed by difficult terrain and wartime shortages of labour, capital, and materials, before the line finally reached the Belgian Congo border in 1929. By 1973, it had become Angola’s largest employer, moving well over half of what was then Zaire’s copper and close to half of Zambia’s, before Angola’s 27-year civil war got in the way.

By the time the fighting ended in 2002, less than three per cent of the railway remained operational. Following this, a $2 billion Chinese-financed rehabilitation programme running from 2006 to 2014, structured as a rail-for-oil arrangement, rebuilt the line before the current Western-backed concession took over in 2023.

The financing, structured by the Africa Finance Corporation alongside the advisory firm Eaglestone, includes $553 million from the United States International Development Finance Corporation and $200 million from the Development Bank of Southern Africa. Africa Finance Corporation President and Chief Executive Samalia Zubairu hailed the deal as more than just a transaction.

“As one of the continent’s most strategic transport corridors, the project will strengthen regional connectivity, facilitate trade and unlock new opportunities for economic growth across Angola and the wider region,” Zubairu said during the reveal.

That closing follows financing agreements signed late last year and builds on an earlier round of U.S. support. Washington had already committed roughly $550 million to the corridor under a loan announced during the Biden administration, alongside broader backing through the Partnership for Global Infrastructure and Investment.

The European Union, the African Finance Corporation, the Development Bank of Southern Africa, and the governments of Angola, Zambia, and the DRC have all added weight to what has become one of the most closely watched infrastructure projects on the continent.

Perhaps the scale of ambition is matched by that which sits at the end of the line. Currently, the DRC is estimated to hold up to 70 per cent of the world’s cobalt reserves, while Africa as a whole is thought to possess around 30 per cent of global critical mineral reserves.

Angola itself is no minor player either. According to the corridor’s own Investment Promotion Authority, the country holds 26 of the 51 minerals currently classed as critical worldwide, including chromium, cobalt, graphite, lead, lithium, and nickel, alongside its better-known oil reserves.

Minerals such as copper and cobalt are essential to electric vehicle batteries, renewable energy storage, and advanced manufacturing, making the question of how efficiently they can reach global markets a matter of considerable economic and strategic weight.

Analysts at the Atlantic Council have called the corridor the most significant US-backed infrastructure investment in Africa in a generation, and one intended to advance American strategic interests as much as African industrialisation.

The business benefits are already becoming clear.

In December 2023, Canadian mining company Ivanhoe ran its first test shipments along the route, sending about 10,000 tonnes of copper from its mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Before this, Ivanhoe had to haul its copper thousands of kilometres by truck to ports in South Africa, Tanzania, Mozambique, and Namibia. Those road trips took anywhere from five to six weeks.

After switching to the Lobito route, the distance to the port drops by about two-thirds. The journey is reduced to around 1,700 kilometres, and trucks can finish a complete round trip in roughly 20 days.

“In 2023, approximately 90% of Kamoa-Kakula’s concentrates were shipped to international customers from the ports of Durban and Dar es Salaam, with each round-trip taking approximately 40 to 50 days. The distance to the port of Lobito is roughly half that to Durban, and rail transportation is notably faster and far less energy-intensive,” Ivanhoe Mines asserted on their official website, with Founder Robert Friedland emphasising Lobito Corridor’s strategic importance.

“This is set to become a crucial trade route for copper and other critical minerals from a uniquely strategic region of Africa… metals that are so desperately needed for our planet’s energy transition,” Friedland said.

Friedland’s framing, however, is on the surface of an underlying geopolitical undercurrent. For much of the past two decades, China has built a dominant position in Central Africa’s mining sector, both through direct ownership of mines and through resource-for-infrastructure arrangements such as the Sicomines deal in the DRC, under which Chinese firms committed roughly $3 billion in infrastructure in exchange for mining rights valued far higher.

Research from the Istituto Affari Internazionali found that Chinese firms now own or hold stakes in 15 of the DRC’s largest copper and cobalt mines and operate close to 70 per cent of its industrial cobalt output. The Lobito Corridor’s own Investment Promotion Authority puts the figure even higher, estimating that Chinese interests own around 80 per cent of the DRC’s copper mines and account for some 85 per cent of its rare earth mineral output, including 76 per cent of its cobalt.

From the data, the corridor’s own backers see Chinese dominance of the sector as the problem Lobito is meant to answer. In neighbouring Zambia, Chinese capital holds an equally big position, yet Beijing has signalled plans to invest further billions in the country’s copper industry over the coming years.

At the same time, Washington’s interest in Lobito is widely read against that backdrop. When Frank Garcia, assistant secretary of state for African affairs, appeared before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, he made clear that future U.S. spending in Africa, including humanitarian assistance, would be judged by its contribution to national security and economic interests, but also hailed the Lobito corridor.

“US policy had for too long emphasised aid and dependency, with open-ended commitments and a focus on spreading divisive ideologies. The new approach would be guided by a realistic calculation of costs, risks, and benefits to U.S. interests,” Garcia noted at the time.

Analysts at the Atlantic Council go further, describing Lobito as the United States’ largest effort to counter China’s presence in Africa and as an alternative model to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative.

“Connecting Angola’s port to the mineral-rich regions of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia’s Copperbelt, the 800-mile multimodal transport network that is the Lobito Corridor evolved from a regional transportation initiative into a flagship example of infrastructure investment led by the U.S. Development Finance Corporation (DFC) in Africa, positioned as an alternative model to Chinese Belt and Road financing,” wrote Audrey Hubby, a senior adviser at Atlantic Council in an extensive 66-page report detailing the project.

This competitive approach has lasted across different U.S. administrations, even as priorities shifted. While the Biden administration first signed the agreement for U.S. involvement in the corridor, Trump raised the funding that turned it into actual construction. This means the corridor is now supported by both major American political parties, rather than just one administration. That kind of shared agreement is rare for a project involving both foreign aid and global political rivalries.

However, not everyone is persuaded that the corridor’s benefits will flow primarily to African economies.

“There is a real danger that the corridor exacerbates the crises in conflict-torn African nations, rather than offering solutions. Its implementation feels very neocolonial in practice, spirit and objectives,” Mike Jennings, professor of global development at SOAS University of London, told Al Jazeera.

For Jennings, weak transport links between African countries have long undermined regional integration, and building those links could support genuine economic transformation if done appropriately. Others go further still, framing Lobito primarily as a mechanism to secure alternative Western supply chains for critical minerals rather than a genuine African development project.

The practical case for the corridor, however, is not hard to make. Freight that once took three weeks or longer to reach the coast via Durban or Dar es Salaam can, once the line is fully operational, move in a fraction of that time. Data from the International Energy Agency (IEA) and logistics giant Trafigura, a key operator in the Lobito Atlantic Railway consortium, shows a significant difference in shipping times for African critical minerals.

Moving cobalt hydroxide from Durban to refineries in China typically takes 25 to 30 days at sea. In contrast, cargo exiting through Angola’s Port of Lobito can reach European ports in just 10 to 12 days, while also opening direct, faster routes across the Atlantic to North America.

That kind of reduction in time and cost matters well beyond the mining companies themselves. The corridor will significantly lower transport costs across the board, stimulate industrial development in Angola, Zambia, and the DRC, and strengthen intra-African trade by improving the connectivity between Atlantic ports and inland economies. This aligns with the ambitions of the African Continental Free Trade Area.

What else does Lobito corridor offer the locals?

Locally, the corridor is credited with creating opportunities beyond the mining sector itself, for farmers, artisans, and small traders hoping to move their own goods along improved road and rail links rather than relying solely on the export of raw minerals.

Employment is one of the clearer near-term gains being promised. Rehabilitation of 1,300 kilometres of track, the construction of new sidings and marshalling yards, and the ongoing operation of an expanded freight fleet all require labour on a scale that construction firms and financiers have pointed to as a direct local benefit, separate from any longer-term industrial spillovers.

Communities along the Lobito-Luau-Lubumbashi-Ndota route, many previously reliant on subsistence farming or informal trade with little access to reliable transport, stand to gain from improved road links built alongside the railway, even where their own livelihoods have nothing to do with mining.

Whether the corridor’s broader economic promise translates into deeper industrialisation, rather than simply faster export of unprocessed ore, also remains one of the more contested questions surrounding the project.

The DRC currently produces the great majority of the world’s cobalt, yet has only a handful of refineries, and their combined output of refined material remains modest. Analysts at the Istituto Affari Internazionali argue that without a parallel push to build processing and refining capacity, African producers risk capturing only a fraction of the value their resources generate elsewhere. There are signs of a shift in that direction, with the DRC government moving to restrict raw mineral exports and encourage more local processing.

“Its (Lobito’s) transformative promise will only be realised if the project is designed and governed in ways that directly confront, rather than reproduce, the deep structural legacies of neo-colonialism that continue to shape the political economy of the region. In fragile contexts, large-scale infrastructure projects such as the Lobito Corridor also carry the risk that domestic budgets may be diverted towards providing security and protection for international investments, thereby undermining their intended development impact,” write Marianna Lunardini and Darlington Tshuma of Istituto Affari Internazionali.

Angola’s section of the corridor is already carrying copper shipments, backed by Lobito Atlantic Railway commitments of $455 million for Angolan infrastructure and $100 million for upgrades in the DRC, alongside new locomotives and wagons.

An 800-kilometre extension into Zambia’s Copperbelt heartland at Chingola is targeted for completion by 2029. This, the African Development Bank estimates, will cost $1.6 billion, pledging $500 million itself and leading fundraising efforts for the remainder.

However, significant risks remain. The corridor spans areas with weak governance, uneven maintenance, and ongoing instability in the eastern DRC. Flooding earlier this year damaged a bridge on the Lobito to Huambo stretch, suspending rail services for nearly two months and forcing a switch to truck transport.

Political durability in Washington also presents another hurdle. While the project currently enjoys bipartisan support driven by Western efforts to diversify mineral supply chains away from China, long-term backing heavily depends on political shifts in Washington as much as construction progress on the ground.

Ultimately, the big question is whether the corridor will genuinely benefit local African economies or simply serve foreign buyers extracting the continent’s raw resources.