(Ecofin Agency) - Given its limited access to the sea, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) strongly relies on its neighbors, including South Africa and Tanzania, to export its copper. Angola may soon become a new shipping route, due to the slowness when passing through Tanzania and SA.

Last week, the first shipment of Congolese copper left the port of Lobito in Angola for the United States. Trafigura, part of the consortium managing the Lobito rail corridor and port, announced the departure on August 22. The copper cathodes were shipped from Kolwezi and arrived at Lobito six days later, confirming the Lobito corridor as the quickest export route for DRC copper. In contrast, reaching ports in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, or Durban, South Africa, takes 14 and 25 days, respectively.

Before the recent shipment to the US, the DRC had sent some of its copper to Europe and the Far East, through the Lobito corridor. The European Union and the United States are financially backing the corridor's development to challenge China's dominance in copper supplies from the Central African Copperbelt, which mainly includes the DRC and Zambia. There are also plans to extend the Lobito corridor into Zambia.