The Making of a Middle Power: Angola’s Lobito Corridor

Geographically blessed with mineral-rich neighbours to the east and the Atlantic to the west, Angola occupies a pivotal role, providing a vital transport and energy corridor that connects central and southern Africa to global markets while fostering regional trade, industrial development, and economic influence. Angola is positioning itself as a middle power that is strategically non-aligned, appealing to both Chinese and American investment.

A vital component of this strategy is the Lobito Corridor, an economic corridor that extends from the Atlantic port city of Lobito through central Angola and eastward into the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s mining region, ultimately linking to Zambia’s Copperbelt. The backbone of this multilateral infrastructure and economic initiative is the Benguela railway. Completed in 1931, the railway includes 1,289 km of track in Angola and an additional 450 km in the DRC. The line was heavily damaged during Angola’s 27-year civil war and was rebuilt between 2006 and 2014 through a $2 billion Chinese loan, in which Angola supplied oil in exchange for Chinese-built development projects. José Eduardo dos Santos, Angola’s president from 1979-2017, presided over one of Africa’s most corrupt regimes, using Angola’s vast oil wealth to enrich a small elite while state institutions were hollowed out by patronage and embezzlement, a legacy that continues to shape the governance and economic challenges surrounding projects like the Lobito Corridor.

While renewed investment in the Lobito Corridor marks a promising step toward greater infrastructure and regional interconnection, ensuring that the benefits are equitably distributed across the country’s population remains a challenge. Critical mineral extraction is a driver of this project and is essential for the clean energy transition. Still, critics worry that such projects can reinforce dependence on resource extraction and degrade the environment rather than promote inclusive development.

“Since the end of the civil war… Angola has been pursuing a corridor strategy to connect with its neighbours. I suspect Lobito will remain mostly a transport [corridor] for unprocessed copper and cobalt but the additional investments in agri-business, SMEs and light manufacturing could change the model from being an extraction corridor to a developmental one”, says Alex Vines, the Africa programme director at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The US has so far invested over $4 billion in the Lobito Corridor, with President Biden committing $560 million in December of 2024, which the Trump administration remains committed to. This will be allocated to loans, grants, and private-sector mobilisation to expand and modernise the railway system and associated infrastructure. Alongside the US, the European Union has become a major partner in the Lobito Corridor through its Global Gateway initiative. It is simultaneously expanding its footprint along the corridor, investing in rail and energy infrastructure as part of its efforts to secure critical minerals and offer an alternative to China.

Yet growing US and EU engagement does not displace China’s long-standing presence in regional logistics and mining. As Alex Vines observes: “Currently the main beneficiaries of Lobito are Canadian and Chinese companies… and the Chinese have just announced a $1.5bn investment in upgrading the Tazara railway to the Indian Ocean from Zambia – this could complement or compete – depending on geopolitics.” 

The Lobito Economic Corridor links Africa’s rich copper and cobalt deposits, critical for the global clean-energy transition, to international markets. But these developments carry risks. Greenpeace Africa Pan-African Political Strategist, Koaile Monaheng, highlights that “one of the risks we amplify in the context of the energy transition to renewable energy through critical minerals is that they do not replicate harmful, colonial, extractive structures of the fossil fuel economy. The ‘resource curse’… is a common feature of resource-rich countries with lower levels of inclusive economic development and growth than those without such resources coupled [with] higher levels of inequality and poor governance.” Whether the corridor delivers benefits or entrenches inequality will largely depend on the transparency and accountability of government management.

ADVERTISEMENT

Running alongside the Lobito corridor are megaprojects such as Hydro-Link, a U.S.-Backed initiative to build a $1.5 billion hydropower transmission line spanning 1,160 km and carrying 1,200 megawatts of electricity from Angola to the DRC’s mining region. The project is being developed by Symbion, which will manage the construction and operation of the transmission line.

Paul Hinks, CEO of Symbion, emphasizes that “Hydro-Link is in fact a project that will supply electricity to both Angola and the DRC. It is not going to be delivering hydropower exclusively to the DRC…we will be talking with RNT-EP, the Angolan transmission company, about how Hydro-Link can best contribute to increased electricity access and the decarbonisation efforts of the government.”

Furthermore, Hinks emphasised that Hydro-Link will utilize hydropower as a renewable, low-cost, base-load energy source. “It has long made the most sense for Africa, and hydro continues to supply clean, renewable energy all over the continent… Africa needs to increase access, and the power it sells needs to be affordable by its peoples. Therefore, the use of low-cost power sources such as hydropower should be aggressively promoted,” he explained.

While critical minerals extraction is necessary to support the energy transition, electricity projects targeting mining zones are prioritised over most Angolan or Congolese households. Monaheng points out that “there are over 70% of Congolese and over 50% of Angolans that still have no electricity access—that is energy poverty.”

Although the Angolan government is encouraging banks to invest in local communities, economic risks and higher returns elsewhere mean that the Lobito Corridor is likely to attract most capital. Herald Aloo, a business and finance journalist published in The Africa Report, explained that Angolan banks are focusing on corridor investments, noting that “the Lobito Corridor is a priority for them… Local communities are left with minimal benefits.”

He added, “The spillover… is likely to be there. If you look at the value chain, that is where the majority of the community are likely to benefit.”

The government’s bid for middle-power status risks deepening dependence on foreign capital and the extractive industry rather than transforming the domestic economy. The development of the Lobito Corridor will reveal whether Angola can translate its infrastructure ambitions into a model of equitable regional development, or whether it will remain a geopolitical and economic corridor serving everyone but its own citizens.