The News
DR Congo is set to take an equity stake in a $270 million cross-border power line linking the country to Zambia, its finance ministry told Semafor. The move comes as electricity demand in the country’s mining region rises faster than supply, with miners building metal processing plants to satisfy local policymakers’ desire to keep some of the value chain in the country. The rising power needs are forcing operators to turn to diesel and build their own backup systems due to under-developed industrial options.
The project, approved by Zambia’s energy regulator last year, is being developed by Enterprise Power DRC, a private power trading company, and its Zambian subsidiary. DR Congo’s ministry of finance said the 200-kilometer, high-voltage line will have initial capacity of 460 MW, expandable to 550 MW, running from Kalumbila, a copper-mining town in northwestern Zambia, to Kolwezi, the heart of Congo’s copper mining region. But a start date for the project is still to be set.
The planned equity stake is being tied to the Congolese government’s wider infrastructure push after the $1.25 billion debut eurobond it raised last month. Finance Minister Doudou Fwamba told reporters in Kinshasa that studies showed 1 GW of additional power could double current mine production in the country, adding that DR Congo needs energy infrastructure to move from lightly processed mineral exports toward local processing and manufacturing.
Know More
Even though DR Congo has Africa’s largest untapped hydropower potential with the Inga Dam, much of the potential remains underdeveloped and the power system still cannot meet basic demand. The country’s energy deficit is estimated at more than 5,000 MW, including at least 900 MW for mining in the southern region. Auguy Bakome, project manager at Kamoa-Kakula Ivanhoe’s Kolwezi-based mine and Africa’s largest copper producer, told Semafor the “massive” deficit means mining companies like his are forced to rely on expensive diesel backup.
But the demand for more power is growing as mines process more metals locally in keeping with the ambitions of the Congolese government. At Kamoa-Kakula, Ivanhoe has started producing copper anodes from a new smelter designed to process 500,000 tonnes a year, adding a power-hungry step to an operation already underserved by DR Congo’s electricity deficit.
That gap is pulling private power companies deeper into the mining region. Frank Alloghe, CrossBoundary Energy’s mining and industrial lead in Africa, told Semafor that the continent’s Copperbelt is now the “strategic core” of the company’s Africa strategy. CrossBoundary is developing a $250 million solar-and-storage project for Ivanhoe’s Kamoa-Kakula, with phased delivery expected toward full capacity by the third quarter this year.
Step Back
DR Congo’s long-term answer to its power shortage remains Inga III, the giant hydropower project on the Congo River. The World Bank approved a $250 million first phase last year as part of a planned $1 billion program to prepare the project, after pulling earlier support in 2016 over strategic differences with the government. The Bank says Inga III could eventually generate between 2 GW and 11 GW, a range that runs from almost DR Congo’s entire current installed capacity to enough power to export to other countries in the region including as far as South Africa.
Notable
• Africa’s ambition to localize mineral supply chains is economically meaningful only when minerals are embedded in functional infrastructure ecosystems.