“In 2022, Angola rejected a Chinese bid to re-rehabilitate and operate freight service along the Lobito Corridor line. Instead it granted a 30-year concession to a U.S.-backed European consortium that promises to carry millions of tons of green-energy minerals such as copper, manganese and cobalt from Congo to Angola’s Atlantic coast.
The U.S. government is planning to lend $250 million and its prestige to make sure the $1.7 billion Lobito Corridor project succeeds.
The Biden administration has made improved commercial ties with Africa a foreign-policy priority. The railway win, along with several other recent Western business coups, shows the U.S. and its allies can hold their own in the elbowing for economic position and political sway in Africa, according to American officials.
The U.S. Export-Import Bank is lending Angola $900 million to buy American equipment for solar-energy projects expected to supply power to a half-million homes. In September, the bank approved a $363 million loan guarantee to help New Jersey-based Acrow Corp. of America sell steel bridges to the Angolan government.
Last month, Texas-based railway consortium All-American Rail Group signed a memorandum of understanding with the Angolan government to explore upgrades to a parallel train route to Congo running across northern Angola. The Angolan Transport Ministry put the potential investment linked to the project, which would be more focused on agricultural trade, at $4.5 billion.”
