Lisbon, Aug. 26, 2026 (Lusa) - The Portuguese civil construction company Mota-Engil has signed a 30-year concession contract to operate a freight train line from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) to Angola, as part of the Lobito Corridor.
«Mota-Engil África will be responsible, for 30 years, for the operation, management and maintenance of the railway infrastructure for the transport of goods, minerals, liquids and gases along the corridor that is part of the Lobito Corridor Railway Concession (in Angola) and, subsequently, from the port of Lobito to Sakania, in the province of Haut-Katanga in the south of the DRC,» the company states in a press release sent to the Portuguese Securities Market Commission.
Over the course of the contract, investment is expected to reach $1.8 billion [€1.544 billion]», the company adds in the statement, which specifies that the agreement covers the «development, operation, modernisation, rehabilitation and maintenance of the Lobito Corridor, more specifically the section from Dilolo to Sakania (approximately 1,037 km) in the DRC».
This concession, the company concludes, «will enable a connection between the Zambian border (Sakania) and the Angolan border (Dilolo), thereby ensuring a rail link from all the mines in the Lualaba and Haut-Katanga regions of the DRC to the port of Lobito in Angola and to international markets».
The Angolan section of the Lobito Corridor — which Mota-Engil manages jointly with the Trafigura Group — has received financial support from the US International Development Finance Corporation, which in December announced that it had signed a letter of intent with Mota-Engil for financing of up to $1 billion, with the aim of helping the Portuguese company to repair and operate the railway line in the DRC, an African country that is the world's second-largest producer of copper and the main source of cobalt, a mineral used in batteries.
The Lobito Corridor is a 1,300-kilometre-long railway line that crosses five Angolan provinces – Benguela, Huambo, Bié, Moxico and Moxico Leste – and extends into the Democratic Republic of the Congo and, in future, to Zambia, linking the Port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast to the Copperbelt mining region.
Approximately 80% of the corridor's market potential is generated by the Katanga region in the DRC, from where cobalt, copper, nickel and lithium are exported to the international market.
The future governance mechanism for this corridor – which has received investment commitments from the European Union, multilateral banks, the United States and multilateral financing institutions – will be the Lobito Corridor Development Company (SDCL), a public company established in January 2026 with the mission to manage, coordinate, supervise and promote the Corridor's economic development activities and attract strategic investment in the agriculture, industry, tourism and services sectors.
The Lobito Corridor concession is operated by LAR – Lobito Atlantic Railway – which was awarded a 30-year concession in 2023 and includes three European companies: Mota-Engil, Trafigura and Vecturis.
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