Company and project
Cameroon Steel SARL is developing a steel complex at Mboro, in the Kribi industrial-port zone.
Foundation stone: 30 Dec 2024
Arc furnace and ladle furnace
Billet caster
Bar and wire-rod mills
Second melt line
Sections mill
Melt-shop expansion
Beam mill
Option: direct reduction
0Mt/yr
built to date
In development
Stage of the project: nothing is built yet. Site surveys, the impact assessment, engineering and financing are still ahead
Foundation stone laid at Mboro
Source: Cameroon Tribune, 30 Dec 2024 and 2 Jan 2025
5 planned steps before the first heat
0.3Mt/yr
of finished products; this phase adds +0.3 Mt/yr
Electric melt shop, reinforcing bar and wire rod
Phase 1: first heat
Hot commissioning and first heat, then ramp-up in 2031 towards the nameplate capacity of 0.3 Mt/yr of reinforcing bar and wire rod.
0.5Mt/yr
of finished products; this phase adds +0.2 Mt/yr
Light and medium sections
Phase 2: sections, to 0.5 Mt/yr
Angles, channels and flats from a second melt line and a sections mill, subject to market and financing.
1Mt/yr
of finished products; this phase adds +0.5 Mt/yr
H-beams and heavy sections, to 1 Mt/yr
Phase 3: heavy sections, to 1 Mt/yr
H- and I-beams and heavy sections, with the melt-shop expansion, subject to market and financing.
Option: direct reduction. Later: long-term option, no date.
Choose a stage, or use the arrow keys.
Cameroon Steel SARL is developing a steel complex at Mboro, in the Kribi industrial-port zone. Its design capacity is one million tonnes a year, reached in three phases, starting with an electric melt shop and a mill for reinforcing bar and wire rod.
1Mt/yr
Target design capacity, built in phases
Source
Cameroon Tribune, « Industrialisation : la voie royale de l’émergence », 2 Jan 2025
0.3Mt/yr
Planned first phase: reinforcing bar and wire rod
Source
Cameroon Steel reference configuration RC-1 (edition 10 Oct 2026): planning assumption, subject to engineering and permits
30December 2024
Foundation stone laid at Mboro by the Prime Minister, representing the Head of State
Source
Cameroon Tribune, « Kribi : le Premier ministre, chef du gouvernement est là », 30 Dec 2024
15%
Share of Mbalam output that Cameroon Mining Company’s convention is reported to provide for local transformation; the same report presents Cameroon Steel as the future national steel hub of the Mbalam programme
Source
Camer.be via AllAfrica, « Cameroon Mining Company confirme l’entrée du projet Mbalam dans sa phase irréversible d’exécution », 12 Dec 2025
Who we are
Cameroon Steel SARL is a company incorporated under Cameroonian law to build and operate a steel complex in the Kribi industrial-port zone. Its purpose is narrow and demanding: turn iron units into steel products that meet recognised standards, close to a deep-water port, a 225 kV power supply and the country’s largest building sites.
The project belongs to a group of industrial interests built around Cameroonian iron ore. Its sister company, Cameroon Mining Company, holds the exploitation permit for the Mbalam iron-ore deposit in the east of the country. Its mining convention is reported to provide for 15% of Mbalam’s output to be transformed locally. The same press report presents Cameroon Steel as the future national steel hub of that programme; it does not say that the convention names the company. If confirmed, the 15% provision would give the steelworks a long-term route to domestic ore; it does not make that ore available tomorrow, and the first phase is designed not to depend on it.
We are at the development stage. The foundation stone was laid on 30 December 2024; site surveys, the environmental and social impact assessment, front-end engineering and financing come next. Until they are complete, every capacity, date and quantity on this site is a plan, and is presented as one.
Where the project sits
In five steps, the map moves from the scale of Cameroon to the Kribi site. Solid lines exist today; dashed orange lines are proposed. The site is shown only by a marker and, at Kribi scale, by an indicative area of 1.5 km radius.
Gulf of Guinea
Cameroon’s coastline opens onto the Gulf of Guinea, the maritime front of a region that imports most of its steel. Two ports carry the country’s sea trade: Douala, on the Wouri estuary, and Kribi, the deep-water port further south.
Cameroon
Cameroon imported 412,049 t of iron and steel in 2025, more than twice its 2019 tonnage. The country already rolls rebar; what it lacks is the iron and the billets that feed its mills.
The mining east
The Mbalam deposit lies near the border with the Republic of the Congo, about 500 km from Kribi. Cameroon Mining Company holds its exploitation permit; a Mbalam–Kribi railway has been contracted as a public-private partnership but is not built.
Kribi
Kribi combines a 16 m deep quay, an industrial zone of about 4,000 ha now developed by KPIZ S.A., and a 225 kV line and substation due to supply 100 MW at first, then 330 to 400 MW. A coastal Édéa–Kribi–Lolabé–Campo railway is at memorandum stage.
Mboro
The complex is planned at Mboro, inland of the deep-water port, within the industrial-port zone. We publish only an indicative area of 1.5 km radius, not a boundary. Measured from the centre of that area, the site is about 3 to 4 km from the port frontage and about 12 km from the boundary of the marine national park; the impact assessment will cover the coast, the Lobé river and that park.
Timeline
Verified milestones carry a dated source. Planned steps are objectives: they depend on permits, engineering, the market and financing, and they will move if those do.
10 Oct 2026
Cameroon Steel publishes ten sourced studies on market, technology, energy, climate, skills and quality.
Source: Cameroon Steel
The phased project
Each phase adds a product family the market imports or cannot find, and each starts only when the previous one is running, financed and permitted.
Cumulative capacity, Mt/yr of finished products
Phase 12030
+0.3 Mt/yr → 0.3
Reinforcing bar Ø8 to 32 mm; wire rod Ø5.5 to 12 mm
Electric arc furnace, ladle furnace, billet caster, induction heating, bar mill, wire-rod mill
AssumptionPhase 22032–2034
+0.2 Mt/yr → 0.5
Angles, channels, flats
Second melt line (furnace, ladle furnace, caster), sections mill
AssumptionPhase 3after 2034
+0.5 Mt/yr → 1
H- and I-beams, heavy sections
Melt-shop expansion, beam mill
AssumptionOption: direct reduction
A direct-reduction module could turn Cameroonian ore into reduced iron, if a direct-reduction-grade concentrate, gas and approvals come together.
Indicative
An electric arc furnace runs from day one on scrap and imported reduced iron; it waits for neither a 500 km railway nor a pellet plant. It comes in lines of a few hundred thousand tonnes, the size of the Cameroonian market, and it emits far less than a blast furnace on a hydro-dominated grid.
The reverse step, turning national ore into reduced iron, needs a direct-reduction-grade concentrate, reliable natural gas and its own approvals. We reserve the land and the option; we do not promise a date.
+0.2Mt/yr
Planned second phase: angles, channels and flats
Source
RC-1 reference configuration, Phase 2 (150 to 200 kt/yr range); indicative, subject to market and financing
+0.5Mt/yr
Planned third phase: H-beams and heavy sections, reaching 1 Mt/yr
Source
RC-1 reference configuration, Phase 3; indicative, subject to market and financing
The project’s role
Make at home the iron units, billets and sections that the country’s processors and building sites import today.
161kt
Billets imported in 2023, the largest steel import (78% from Indonesia)
Give the local-transformation obligation of the Mining Code, and the one reported for the Mbalam convention, its first industrial customer.
15%
Minimum share of mine output for local processing (2023 Mining Code, art. 40(4))
Source
Loi n° 2023/014 du 19 décembre 2023 portant Code minier, art. 40(4)
Anchor the “steelmaking linked to mineral exports” cluster of the Kribi industrial-port zone, in the area served by the port and the 225 kV substation.
~4,000ha
Kribi industrial-port zone, developed by KPIZ S.A. (launched on 26 February 2026)
Source
Investir au Cameroun, 20 Feb 2026 and 4 Mar 2026
www.investiraucameroun.com/gestion-publique/0403-23163-zone-
Governance
These are commitments, not achievements: we will report on how we meet them, phase by phase.
Every figure we publish carries a status and a source; plans are presented as plans. We correct our errors in public.
IFC Performance Standards and the World Bank Group EHS Guidelines, alongside Cameroonian law, from the impact assessment onward.
Each phase is committed only when its market, financing, permits and power supply are confirmed.
Zero tolerance of corruption, competitive procurement, and conflicts of interest declared by directors and staff.
Cameroonian recruitment, training before start-up, local suppliers wherever quality allows; objective: about 90% nationals in operations by year five.
A grievance mechanism for neighbours and workers, and regular public reporting from construction onward.
What we do not know yet
Go further
White papers
Visualisation Covers: computer-generated images that do not depict an existing facility.