Paper short abstract:

My contribution is a social history of infrastructure development (Sendaro 1987; Monson 2011). I look at the labour relations of the “infrastructural hurry” (Grace 2022) that characterised the construction and operation of Africa’s longest oil pipeline from Dar es Salaam to Ndola, 1967–1985.

Paper long abstract:

My contribution is a social history of infrastructure development (Sendaro 1987; Monson 2011). I look at the labour relations of the “infrastructural hurry” (Grace 2022) that characterised the construction and operation of Africa’s longest oil pipeline from Dar es Salaam to Ndola, 1967–1985. The Zambian leadership aimed to re-connect the country’s fuel supply for good, disrupted after a trade war with neighbouring Rhodesia. I am explaining how and with what consequences more than 1000 workers and engineers from Zambia, Tanzania and Italy completed the project within only 15 months. Specifically, I am examining the origins of rapid and massive development of leaks over the first 17 years after the construction.

The research is based on reports, minutes of meetings and correspondence from the pipeline operator, a consulting engineer and a development bank. I show that flaws and mishaps at the construction contributed to pitting corrosion. The ensuing pipeline leaks were arguably in part an aftermath of a rushed construction which only a comprehensive rehabilitation could remedy. Picking up where high level political and economic analysis left off (Scotto 2022; Chongo 2015; Cohen 2014), the study closely looks at the work processes of infrastructure development on the ground. Centering on debates on development and sustainability (Li 2007; Unger et al. 2022; Swilling 2020), the study of this African oil pipeline project contributes to the understanding of transport technology and its creation in African contexts (INTRA 2023).