Portugal has handed over its controlling stake in the Cahora Bassa hydroelectric project to Mozambique.

Mozambique President Armando Guebuza signed an agreement with Portugese Prime Minister Jose Socrates giving the African nation an 85% majority control of the 2000MW project, which is located on the Zambezi river.

Portugal will in turn receive US$950M from its formal colony, which had previously held only an 18% stake in the project.

Negotiations for the transfer go back as far as Mozambique’s independence from Portugal in 1975. Construction of Cahora Bassa began in 1969, and the project came online in 1978.