Mota-Engil lines up $1bn US-backed concession for Congo copper railway

Mota-Engil is set to sign a 30-year concession to rehabilitate and operate a key copper and cobalt railway in the Democratic Republic of Congo, with the project potentially receiving up to $1bn in US financing.

The agreement would give Portugal's largest construction company control of the Congolese section of the Lobito Corridor, the strategic route intended to increase shipments of critical minerals to Western markets. The roughly 1,000km railway runs through major mining centres including Kolwezi, Tenke and Lubumbashi. Mota-Engil already helps operate the corridor's Angolan section through a joint venture with Trafigura, connecting the mineral-rich interior to the Atlantic port of Lobito.

Completing the corridor

The US International Development Finance Corporation has backed the Angolan route and had signed a letter of interest with Mota-Engil the previous December for up to $1bn to support rehabilitation and operation of the Congolese railway. Extending Mota-Engil's role to the Congolese section would give a single operator responsibility for the entire corridor from the copperbelt to the coast, potentially simplifying scheduling, maintenance standards and investment decisions across what had previously been a more fragmented, multi-operator route.

Competing for Africa's minerals

The project reflected intensifying competition for Africa's critical minerals, with Congo the world's second-largest copper producer and its leading source of cobalt, even though Chinese companies currently dominate much of the country's mining and processing capacity. For Washington, financing a Portuguese contractor to rehabilitate and run a Congolese railway represented a lower-risk way to secure influence over the logistics of Congolese mineral exports without needing to invest directly in mining assets themselves — an approach that mirrored the DFC's parallel backing of Gécamines' expanding copper trading business. If concluded, the concession would make Mota-Engil one of the most consequential private infrastructure operators in Central Africa, with commercial responsibility for the rail link connecting three of the world's most important copper-cobalt mining districts to global markets.

Sources

• Miningmx: Congo copper corridor set for $1bn US boost, 27 Aug 2026

Photo: A roundtable discussion on the Lobito Corridor, the rail route linking DRC copper mines to Angola's Atlantic coast. U.S. Department of State from United States, Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.