They should go South to the end of the new road, then depending...

They should go South to the end of the new road, then depending on where the customer or processing is likely to be go east, west or both (preferably by rail) via the traditional copper routes out. Directly east is too immature right now and no obvious plans for improvement that I can see. West to Ankoro will be upgraded but why go 160km to a more marginal rail line with a ferry in the way when you can go 240km South to the main rail routes which have active upgrade activity going on now with ongoing sponsorship from the copper/cobalt belt. Its worth the extra effort. When Ankoro is tangible you can reassess as also with the path directly East.

Once its on a train you dont have to consider the logistics of crossing lakes, rivers, road quality and shipment pricing should be more consistent and lower per km. West to Lobito pretty much passed a proof of concept last year, and East to Dar es Salaam is well established from here. In a year's time I expect the former will be well sorted and the latter improved further yet again. If the timeframes indicated to get to mining are to be born out, there cant be residual risk and getting to rail is a good thing. Ratio of road to rail going East this way (10% road :90% rail). West is 400km shorter than East, but much less developed at present. It really comes down to which factory the battery build work will be done in since the total journey is what matters.

The good part, the first cross continent luxury rail tours from DeS to Lobito commence this year.