Trafigura has walked away from a proposed 2,000-megawatt transmission line \u200cthat would have carried surplus hydropower from Angola to copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters.<\/p>\n
The initiative is one of at least three privately backed \u200btransmission projects worth billions of dollars aimed at supplying electricity from Angola, which has a large \u200bsurplus of stranded hydropower, to critical minerals operations facing power shortages in the two \u2060neighbouring countries.<\/p>\n
Trafigura signed in July 2024 a non-binding agreement with engineering firm ProMarks and the Angolan government \u200bto conduct feasibility studies for the line.<\/p>\n
“Trafigura has abandoned the project,” said one industry source.<\/p>\n
A second source in \u200bthe Angolan government confirmed Trafigura’s withdrawal, saying the project remains in the negotiation phase with “some changes having been made regarding the consortium members interested in implementing the contract”.<\/p>\n
The energy and water ministry did not immediately respond to questions and it was \u200bunclear if the government intends pursuing the project.<\/p>\n
Asked if they still supported the project, Trafigura, which is \u200bpart of the Lobito Corridor\u00a0Railway consortium\u00a0shipping critical minerals from the DRC to western markets, replied: “No comment”.<\/p>\n
ProMarks did not respond \u200cto \u2060requests for comment.<\/p>\n
OTHER TRANSMISSION PROJECTS TO FILL GAP<\/strong><\/p>\n Two other transmission lines being developed by Meridia Energy, a joint venture between Dubai-based Averi Finance and Morocco’s Somagec, are moving ahead and could help fill the gap.<\/p>\n The project will connect Angola’s national grid to Kolwezi, a strategic hub for DRC’s copper and cobalt production, while linking \u200bAngola to the Southern \u200bAfrican Power Pool and \u2060reinforcing the Lobito Corridor, officials said.<\/p>\n It will also strengthen the electricity grid in Angola’s oil heartland, Cabinda province, and connect Soyo city in the north to the DRC.<\/p>\n The \u200bproject includes the $450 million Soyo-Inga-Cabinda line with a capacity of up to 800 \u200bMW, and \u2060the $1.25 billion Lauca-Kolwezi link with capacity of up to 1,400 MW.<\/p>\n “We are targeting commercial operation of both lines by 2030,” Joao Alvares, chief investment officer at Averi, told Reuters.<\/p>\n Separately, U.S.-based HYDRO-LINK plans to build an interconnector between \u2060Angola and \u200bthe DRC, aiming to deliver reliable, low-cost electricity primarily to the \u200bLualaba and Katanga mining provinces.<\/p>\n The $1.5 billion project would span about 1,200 kilometres (746 miles) and include five substations, with construction expected to take \u200babout two and a half years.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Trafigura has walked away from a proposed 2,000-megawatt transmission line \u200cthat would have carried surplus hydropower from Angola to copper and cobalt mines in the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter told Reuters. The initiative is one of at least three privately backed \u200btransmission projects worth billions […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1866,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":3,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":{"format":"standard","override":[{"template":"1","parallax":"1","fullscreen":"1","layout":"right-sidebar","sidebar":"default-sidebar","second_sidebar":"default-sidebar","sticky_sidebar":"1","share_position":"top","share_float_style":"share-monocrhome","show_featured":"1","show_post_meta":"1","show_post_author_image":"1","show_post_date":"1","post_date_format":"default","post_date_format_custom":"Y\/m\/d","show_post_reading_time":"0","post_reading_time_wpm":"300","post_calculate_word_method":"str_word_count","show_zoom_button":"0","zoom_button_out_step":"2","zoom_button_in_step":"3","show_post_tag":"1","show_comment_section":"1","number_popup_post":"1","show_post_related":"1","show_inline_post_related":"1"}],"image_override":[{"single_post_thumbnail_size":"crop-500","single_post_gallery_size":"crop-500"}],"trending_post_position":"meta","trending_post_label":"Trending","sponsored_post_label":"Sponsored by","disable_ad":"0","source_name":"Reuters","subtitle":""},"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":{"view_counter_number":"0","share_counter_number":"0","like_counter_number":"0","dislike_counter_number":"0"},"footnotes":""},"categories":[2831,2362,30],"tags":[3016,5124],"class_list":["post-21439","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","category-featured","category-southern-africa","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo-drc","tag-trafigura"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21439","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21439"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21439\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21440,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21439\/revisions\/21440"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qiraatafrican.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}