LUANDA, Sept 11 – Lobito Atlantic Railway is accelerating investment along the Lobito Corridor after securing a $750 million financing package, as the operator seeks to significantly expand freight volumes between Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Chief Executive Nicholas Furnier said the company received about $300 million in June from the financing facility and has begun what he described as a “very aggressive ramp-up” of its operations.
The funding is being deployed under a 30-year concession covering the railway from Angola’s Atlantic port of Lobito through Luau on the border with the DRC, with the corridor extending onward to Kolwezi in the country’s copper and cobalt heartland.
The financing was provided by the U.S. International Development Finance Corporation (DFC) and the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA) to modernise the railway, port infrastructure and rolling stock.
Freight volumes set for sharp increase
Lobito Atlantic Railway handled about 5,000 trains in 2025, according to Furnier, although approximately 4,500 were passenger services.
International freight remains a much smaller but strategically important part of the business. The railway transported around 100,000 tons of copper from the DRC in 2025, alongside about 80,000 tons of inbound cargo destined for Congo.
The company expects international freight volumes to rise to approximately 400,000 tons in 2026, with management targeting 3 million tons over the longer term.
“If you combine the international traffic, we’ll do approximately 400,000 tons of goods transported internationally in 2026,” Furnier said.
The expansion reflects the corridor’s growing importance to mineral supply chains linking the DRC’s copper and cobalt producing regions with global markets through Angola’s Atlantic coast.
The DRC holds major deposits of copper, cobalt and lithium, increasing the strategic value of transport infrastructure capable of moving minerals to markets in Asia, Europe and the Americas.
Port and rail investment
Furnier said the company’s investment programme covers the modernisation of the Lobito port, railway infrastructure and rolling stock, including locomotives and wagons.
“We are modernizing our port, we’re modernizing the rail, we’re modernizing our rolling stock,” Furnier said.
The objective is to increase capacity and improve the reliability of the corridor while supporting both cross-border and domestic cargo.
Within Angola, the railway transports goods to cities including Huambo, Kuito, Luena and Luau, serving industries ranging from energy and construction to food distribution.
The company also carries equipment and supplies for energy businesses including Sonangol and Sonagas, alongside cement, construction materials and other domestic cargo.
A two-way trade corridor
The Lobito route is intended to facilitate trade in both directions.
While minerals such as copper and cobalt move westward from the DRC toward the Atlantic, Angola can use the same corridor to supply the landlocked country with imported goods.
Furnier highlighted energy products, food and industrial supplies as key categories of inbound cargo, reflecting the DRC’s limited direct access to maritime trade routes.
“One thing which is obvious and is really required in Congo because there is no access to the sea is energy,” he said.
The development of a reliable two-way freight network could therefore expand the corridor beyond a mineral export route and strengthen commercial links between Angola and the DRC.
Strategic importance rises with critical minerals demand
The infrastructure push comes as governments and investors place greater emphasis on alternative supply chains for minerals needed in electric vehicles, batteries, electricity grids and other industrial applications.
The Lobito Corridor has become a major focus of international infrastructure and critical-minerals policy because it provides an Atlantic route into the DRC’s mineral-producing regions.
For Angola, greater freight activity could strengthen the country’s position as a regional logistics and trade hub while supporting efforts to diversify an economy historically dominated by oil.
For the DRC, the corridor offers additional capacity to move minerals to international markets while bringing essential goods and industrial inputs into the country.
Furnier said the company sees substantial long-term potential in the corridor because of the scale of mineral resources in the DRC.
“There is a lot of need from all of the minerals that are stored in Congo,” he said, describing the railway as “an excellent vector” for moving those resources to overseas markets.
The challenge now is translating the corridor’s strategic importance into sustained commercial volumes. The jump from 100,000 tons of copper transported in 2025 to a targeted 400,000 tons of international freight in 2026 will provide an early test of the infrastructure upgrade.
Over the longer term, the 3 million-ton target would represent a substantial transformation in the corridor’s role in regional trade, positioning the Lobito route as a major logistics artery connecting Central Africa’s mineral resources with global markets.
