Tanganyika Concessions Limited

Tanganyika Concessions Limited (TCL or Tanks) was a British mining and railway company founded by the Scottish engineer and entrepreneur Robert Williams in 1899. The purpose was to exploit minerals in Northern Rhodesia and in the Congo Free State. Partly-owned subsidiaries included the Union Minière du Haut-Katanga (UMHK), which undertook mining in the Katanga portion of the copperbelt, and the Benguela railway, which provided a rail link across Angola to the Atlantic Ocean. Belgian banks eventually took over control of the company. The Angolan railway concession was returned to the state of Angola in 2001. Tanganyika Concessions Ltd. was created on 20 January 1899 by Robert Williams, an associate of Cecil Rhodes. Originally all the shareholders were British. Daisy Greville, Countess of Warwick, was one of the shareholders. The purpose was to exploit minerals in Northern Rhodesia and in the Congo Free State. Williams intended to secure a mining concession that the British South Africa Company had granted on 26 May 1898. It covered more than north of the Zambezi river with exclusive rights for prospecting and locating 1,000 claims. The Zambesia Exploring Company Limited (ZE) acquired the majority of the shares, and ZE and TCL were run as one company. Tanganyika Concessions share prices were very unstable in the early years. During one period of a few days the price went from 2 to 13 pounds per share and then crashed. In 1900 the Compagnie du Katanga and the Congo Free State created the Comité Spécial du Katanga (CSK) to manage all the territory in Katanga, with profits shared between the Compagnie du Katanga (1/3) and the Free State (2/3). On 8 December 1900 the Comité Spécial du Katanga granted TCL exclusive prospecting rights for five years in an area of of Katanga adjoining Rhodesia, and an annual subsidy of £10,000. TCL was authorized to exploit the mines that were found with CSK for 30 years. The term was eventually extended to 89 years. The CSK reserved the rights to 60% of the profits from any mines that might be opened.