Australia’s Fortescue confirmed that it was in talks with Congo to develop a series of dams that could become the world’s largest hydroelectric project. Fortescue’s involvement is the latest twist in Congo’s decades-long quest to expand Inga, whose two existing dams – completed in 1972 and 1982 – have a combined installed capacity of nearly 1,800 MW. The proposed expansion of six more dams would bring capacity to over 40,000 MW, roughly double the size of China’s Three Gorges dam, currently the world’s largest. Total development costs have been estimated at up to $80 billion. In 2018, a Chinese consortium that includes China Three Gorges Corporation and a Spanish consortium that includes AEE Power signed a deal with Congo’s government to develop the third dam, known as Inga 3.
In the event that, for any reason, such rights to develop Inga 3 become available, the government of the DRC undertakes to secure for Fortescue Future Industries an exclusive first option to develop Inga 3. Fortescue would use the energy from Inga to produce hydrogen to export around the world. The capital cost of this will be many tens of billions of dollars and direct and indirect employment will be in the hundreds of thousands. Fortescue has said it plans to fund the majority of its green energy projects off its balance sheet, investing about $1 billion a year of its own money.