The Corridor

Jump to section

• Overview & contents
• i. Important Notice and Basis of Preparation
• 1. Executive Summary
• 2. The Corridor
• 3. Operating Model
• 4. Commercial Model
• 5. Market and Competitive Position
• 6. SWOT and Strategic Response
• 7. Financial Projections
• 8. Capital Expenditure, Funding and the Balance Sheet
• 9. Sensitivity and Scenario Analysis
• 10. Risk Analysis
• 11. Regulatory and Compliance
• 12. Organisation
• 13. Implementation Roadmap
• 14. Key Performance Indicators
• 15. Investor Returns and Recommendation
• 16. Assumption Register
• A. Appendix A: Consolidated Financial Summary
• B. Appendix B: Round Trip and Fleet Schedules
• C. Appendix C: Funding, Debt Service and Balance Sheet Schedules
• D. Appendix D: Risk Register
• E. Appendix E: Glossary

2.1 Geography and cargo

Copper produced in the southern Democratic Republic of the Congo and on the Zambian Copperbelt has no domestic market. It must reach a port. The realistic options are Dar es Salaam to the north-east, Durban and the South African ports to the south, Beira and Nacala to the east, and Walvis Bay to the south-west. Each has a different distance, a different border profile and a different congestion pattern, and the balance between them shifts with port performance and seasonal demand.

This plan concentrates on the Dar es Salaam corridor, running from Kolwezi and Lubumbashi through Kasumbalesa into Zambia, up the Great North Road through the Copperbelt, and across the Nakonde and Tunduma border into Tanzania. It is chosen for three reasons: it is materially shorter than the southern routes, which exceed 2 400 kilometres to Durban or Cape Town; it avoids the congestion profile of the Beitbridge crossing; and the northbound consumable flow into the Copperbelt and the DRC gives the return leg a genuine cargo base.

2.2 Why the return leg is the business

The arithmetic in Section 1 bears repeating in a different form. A truck running south loaded and north empty burns nearly as much diesel, pays the same transit charges, wears the same tyres and occupies the same driver for the same number of days as a truck running loaded in both directions. Almost every cost on the corridor is a function of the trip, not of the cargo. Revenue, however, is a function of cargo.

2.3 Borders and the productivity problem

The corridor crosses two major borders. Kasumbalesa, between Zambia and the DRC, is among the busiest and least predictable crossings in the region — queues there have been measured in days rather than hours often enough that corridor planners build them in as a standing assumption. Nakonde and Tunduma, between Zambia and Tanzania, carries the entire northern corridor. Dwell time at these posts, together with loading and offloading queues at mine gates and at the port, is what determines how many round trips a truck completes.

The plan assumes 1.55 round trips per available truck per month in FY2027 rising to 2.05 by FY2031, achieved through double-manning on the long legs, pre-lodged customs documentation, bonded transit arrangements and a border agent presence at both posts. One additional day of dwell per round trip costs US$0.24m of FY2031 EBITDA. That single number is the reason the operating model is built around border throughput rather than around fleet size.