The Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has granted a loan of US$4.5bn to Angola to finance the construction of the Caculo Cabaça dam, the largest power project in Angolan history.
The agreement was signed in Beijing on 29 November by Archer Mangueira, Angola’s finance minister.
The dam will be built on the Kwanza River in the northwest of the country, and when complete will have a generating capacity of just under 2.2GW. At present the entire country has a capacity of about 1.5GW.
The addition will be a step towards the government’s target of building 9GW of capacity by 2025, and will allow it to export power to neighbouring countries such as Namibia and South Africa.
The dam will be constructed by a joint venture comprising China Gezhouba Group Corporation, Boreal Investments, and Niara-Holding. The contract, awarded by the Angolan government and valued at $4.5bn, was signed in June 2015.
Work is expected to take 80 months to complete.
Hydroelectric plants generate more than two-thirds of Angola’s electricity. There are already two dams on the Kwanza, the 180-MW Cambambe Power Station and the 130-MW Capanda Dam, completed in 2007 by Russian contractor Tekhnopromexport.
