The Democratic Republic of Congo is the reason the Lobito Corridor exists. The DRC produces over 70 percent of the world's cobalt and is Africa's largest copper producer. The mining capital of Kolwezi — where the corridor railway terminates — sits atop some of the richest mineral deposits on earth. Every electric vehicle battery, every smartphone, every wind turbine contains minerals that likely originated in the DRC's Copperbelt. The corridor is, at its core, a conduit for these minerals to reach global markets. The question is whether this conduit will benefit the Congolese people or repeat centuries of extraction without return.

Role in the Corridor

The DRC section of the Lobito Corridor comprises approximately 450 kilometres of railway from the Angolan border at Dilolo to Kolwezi in Lualaba Province — the heart of the Copperbelt. This section is operated by the Société Nationale des Chemins de fer du Congo (SNCC), the state-owned railway company, under a track access agreement with the LAR consortium. LAR provides dedicated locomotives and has committed USD 100 million to upgrading the DRC section.

The infrastructure challenge in the DRC is severe. The Dilolo–Kolwezi railway is only partially functional, severely degraded, and operating at speeds of just 10–15 km/h — using less than 5 percent of its designed capacity. An EU/US pre-feasibility study for comprehensive rehabilitation was presented in September 2025, and in October 2025, the DRC Minister of Finance submitted a request to the World Bank for a USD 500 million loan for the full rehabilitation.

Separately, the US International Development Finance Corporation has signed a letter of intent with Mota-Engil to finance the rehabilitation of the Dilolo-Sakania railway line — a project that could receive up to USD 1 billion in DFC financing. This line would extend corridor connectivity south to the Zambian border, creating a continuous rail link from the Atlantic to the heart of the Copperbelt.

Plans are also advancing to expand the railway from Kolwezi to the Kamoa-Kakula copper complex, owned by Ivanhoe Mines, supported by a USD 150 million loan from the Africa Finance Corporation. Kamoa-Kakula has committed to transport between 120,000 and 240,000 tonnes of copper annually via the Lobito Corridor for five years.

The Mineral Economy

The DRC's mineral wealth is staggering in scale and strategic importance. The Katanga Copperbelt — a geological formation approximately 70 kilometres wide and 250 kilometres long between Lubumbashi and Kolwezi — contains at least 72 economic deposits of copper and cobalt, with grades among the highest in the world (some reserves exceeding 5% copper). The DRC and Zambian copper belts together constitute the world's second-largest copper reserve.

Cobalt is the mineral that has made the DRC indispensable to the global energy transition. Essential for lithium-ion batteries used in electric vehicles and energy storage, cobalt from the DRC feeds a supply chain that historically routes through Chinese processing facilities. The Lobito Corridor offers an alternative pathway — shorter, westward-facing, and aligned with Western supply chain security objectives.

The DRC produced approximately 513,300 tonnes of copper concentrates from January to November 2025. Major mining operations include Glencore's Kamoto Mine, Ivanhoe Mines' Kamoa-Kakula complex, and numerous Chinese-owned operations including those controlled by Zhejiang Huayou Cobalt and China Molybdenum. The state mining company Gécamines holds minority stakes in most major projects.

In February 2025, the DRC imposed temporary export quotas on cobalt in response to price collapses caused by oversupply — a dramatic intervention that sent cobalt hydroxide prices up more than fourfold. This demonstrated both the DRC's market power and its willingness to exercise it.

Artisanal Mining: Three Million Lives

Artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) is not a marginal activity in the DRC — it is the livelihood of more than three million people. The "creuseurs" (diggers) of Kolwezi work in conditions that range from regulated cooperatives to informal, dangerous sites where child labour persists. The relationship between industrial mining and artisanal mining is the central social tension along the corridor.

The Entreprise Générale du Cobalt (EGC), a subsidiary of Gécamines established by government decree in 2019, holds the exclusive mandate to purchase, process, and commercialise strategic minerals from artisanal sources — including cobalt, coltan, and germanium. EGC's February 2026 shipment via the Lobito Corridor represents a significant milestone: artisanally sourced minerals flowing through the formal, traceable supply chain that the corridor enables.

In December 2025, the DRC's Minister of Mines signed a decree to regulate the artisanal mining industry in Kolwezi, following a temporary ban and audit that triggered civil unrest. The tension between formalisation (which provides traceability and better conditions) and restriction (which eliminates livelihoods) remains unresolved and politically explosive.

Displacement and Human Rights

The corridor's most pressing human rights concern in the DRC centres on displacement. A December 2025 investigation by Global Witness, using satellite imagery analysis, estimated that up to 1,200 buildings housing approximately 6,500 people could be at risk of displacement along the railway route between Kolwezi and the Angolan border.

The Bel Air neighbourhood of Kolwezi is a microcosm of this risk. An old railway line runs through closely packed houses and market stalls — for years abandoned and used as a pedestrian pathway. Since 2024, Lobito Atlantic Railway trains have begun edging along these tracks. The gap between functioning railway infrastructure and the lives built around disused tracks creates an acute displacement risk that demands careful management.

Global Witness identified legal ambiguities around a "buffer zone" along the railway that could leave Kolwezi's most vulnerable residents open to abuse. Their investigation found that the rehabilitation process risks breaching the EU's Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) if companies involved do not ensure community protection. Local residents warned that the railway risks "destroying people's lives" if not implemented properly.

Separately, Kamoa-Kakula cancelled plans to relocate ten villages in 2025 after discovering that compensation required under the DRC Mining Code far exceeded initial estimates. According to civil society organisation Afrewatch, the process had been conducted without the consultation mechanisms required by the Mining Code, and villagers had been blocked from cultivating their fields for over a year while negotiations were ongoing.

The broader context compounds these specific risks. According to a World Bank report published in October 2025, 85.3 percent of the DRC population lives in extreme poverty, with an unemployment rate estimated at 84 percent and average annual per capita income of just USD 1,600. More than 7 million people have been displaced by conflict in eastern DRC. Against this backdrop, corridor-related displacement — even if relatively small in scale — carries disproportionate impact.

Geopolitical Dynamics

The DRC occupies the most contested position in the corridor's geopolitical landscape. Chinese companies dominate the mining sector — Kolwezi's billboards and buildings are plastered with Chinese characters, and the city has a string of Chinese-run casinos. The Belt and Road Initiative invested heavily in DRC infrastructure, and Chinese firms control a significant share of cobalt and copper processing.

The US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement, signed in December 2025, commits the DRC to channel increasing volumes of minerals through the US-backed Lobito Corridor: within five years, half of copper, 90% of zinc concentrate, and 30% of cobalt controlled by state enterprises must be exported via the Lobito-Sakania route. The agreement also grants US persons a right of first offer on critical minerals destined for export.

This agreement has been criticised by analysts who note its asymmetry — the DRC commits mineral flows while receiving infrastructure investment, but the value addition remains minimal. Zambian parliamentarians have raised similar concerns about the corridor functioning as a "raw materials export pipeline" rather than a catalyst for domestic industrialisation.

The conflict in eastern DRC — where Rwanda-backed M23 rebels have advanced southward — adds a layer of instability. While the mining provinces of the south remain physically distant from the eastern conflict zone, the political reverberations affect investment confidence, government priorities, and diplomatic relationships across the region.

Our Work in the DRC

The DRC is the primary focus of Lobito Corridor's monitoring, documentation, and advocacy work. Our activities in the DRC include systematic monitoring of displacement risks along the Dilolo-Kolwezi railway route; documentation of artisanal mining conditions and the impact of formalisation policies; tracking of community benefit outcomes from corridor investment; analysis of the US-DRC Strategic Partnership Agreement's implications for resource sovereignty; monitoring compliance with CSDDD obligations by EU-linked corridor companies; and amplification of Congolese civil society voices including researchers, journalists, and community organisations working on corridor accountability.

We work in partnership with Congolese civil society organisations, including groups documenting mining conditions in Lualaba and Haut-Katanga provinces, and with international research institutions including IPIS, Global Witness, and Afrewatch.