A three-step roadmap can make Kribi a steel and metals platform by 2040

10.1 Five principles

The roadmap rests on five principles drawn from the previous chapters.

1. Build on what exists. Each industrial step should rely on infrastructure that is already in service or under construction when it is committed, so that public delays do not strand private capital (Chapter 9).
2. Plan the cluster, not the tenant. Power stages, berths, water, waste and corridors should be sized for the zone’s heavy-industry load, not for the first applicant (Chapters 4 to 7).
3. Publish the rules. A heavy-industry land framework, a power-quality code, an industrial water tariff and a zone environmental plan reduce every investor’s risk and every lender’s diligence (Chapters 3 to 5).
4. Finance the enablers together. The zone’s development-finance package from the AfDB, the EU and the IFC [S07] is the natural vehicle for the shared enablers: the second power stage, the bulk berth design, the strategic environmental assessment and the waste facility.
5. Measure and report. Milestones should be public and dated, so that investors can see the platform advancing and authorities can see where it stalls.

Source: Cameroon Steel analysis. Not a plan adopted by any authority.

10.2 Step 1, enable (2026 to 2028)

The first step converts infrastructure already under way into a working platform for one heavy tenant and prepares the cluster.

Power. Commission the 225 kV KPDC-port line and the 225/30 kV substation, due at the end of 2026 [S25], with a heavy-tenant bay and published short-circuit levels at the 225 kV and 30 kV busbars. Adopt a power-quality code for arc furnaces and other fluctuating loads, based on international practice [S74]. Agree a long-term tariff structure for loads above 10 MW with the regulator, the utility and the generator.

Water and services. Bring the port-platform water plant into production in early 2027 [S26], with capacity reserved for industry and an industrial tariff. Identify a licensed route for hazardous furnace dust before the first heat: a secure cell in the zone or a contracted export route for recycling.

Land and governance. Complete the transition from PAK to KPIZ and publish KPIZ’s contractual framework for new tenants, including a heavy-industry template with a long term, renewal rights, a tariff based on hectares and throughput rather than turnover, and compensation on early termination (Chapter 3). Launch the strategic environmental assessment of the zone required for industrial-port complexes [S87], with a baseline air-quality and coastal monitoring network.

Port. Complete the container yard expansion due by the end of 2027 [S30]. Agree berth windows and covered storage for steel inputs at the multipurpose terminal. Write a steel-cluster berth, or an allocation of berth time and covered storage, into the design of the mineral terminal agreed in November 2025 [S32].

Corridors. Advance the reconstruction of the Édéa-Kribi road [S27] with heavy-axle specifications and a truck staging area; complete the feasibility study for the Édéa-Kribi-Lolabé-Campo railway agreed in June 2026 [S41], including sidings to the heavy-industry area.

Steel. Permit, finance and design a first melt shop and rolling mill sized to the first power stage. Cameroon Steel’s complex at Mboro is one example: in its reference configuration, Phase 1 works start in the first quarter of 2029, after the environmental certificate, with a first heat in the second half of 2030, ramp-up in 2031 and an expected sustained output of 270,000 to 300,000 t a year from a 0.3 Mtpa nameplate [S112]. Its melt shop makes billets, with output flexible between wire rod, rebar and merchant billets for existing re-rollers (White paper 03, Chapter 9).

10.3 Step 2, anchor (2028 to 2032)

The second step brings the first melt shop into production and turns one heavy tenant into a cluster.

Power. Bring the second stage of the 225 kV system, 330 to 400 MW [S25], into service by about 2031, before the first stage is fully used in a steel-led scenario, which happens by about 2032 (Figure 10.2), together with a second high-voltage source into the port substation for N-2 security. Decide how Kribi’s gas will be used by industry, whether for an extension of the Kribi gas plant, captive generation or direct reduction, now that the floating liquefaction vessel has left [S68].

Source: supply stages from PAK, 6 August 2025 [S25], with the 330 to 400 MW stage drawn from 2031 (date assumed in this paper; none is published); steel load from the Cameroon Steel reference configuration RC-1 (planning estimate), with a first heat in the second half of 2030, Phase 2 indicatively 2032 to 2034 and Phase 3 after 2034 [S112]; other tenants illustrative. Not a forecast.

Port. Bring into service the first stage of the mineral terminal, agreed in a memorandum of understanding on 4 November 2025 and expected by PAK’s Director General in March 2026 to be completed within five to six years [S32][S03], with dry-bulk handling for iron units and covered storage.

Services. Attract an industrial-gas supplier with an on-site air-separation unit beside the steel cluster; establish a slag-processing yard producing certified aggregate for the zone and the Édéa-Kribi road; open a shared testing laboratory and a training centre with universities and equipment vendors (Chapter 7).

Corridors. Reach financial close and start construction of the Édéa-Kribi-Lolabé-Campo railway.

Steel. Direct the first melt shop’s tonnage at imports of billets and wire rod and at CEMAC exports (White paper 04, Chapter 9); then add a second melt line or second heavy tenant, a sections mill for the angles, channels and beams the region imports, and downstream fabrication: cut-and-bend, mesh, wire drawing and structural steel (Chapter 7).

10.4 Step 3, integrate (2032 to 2040)

The third step links the platform to Cameroon’s iron ore and to wider markets.

Iron from Cameroonian ore. Direct reduction is the route by which Cameroonian ore can become iron for the steel cluster, and by which the Mining Code’s requirement that at least 15% of production be made available for local transformation can be met at scale [S24]. It requires three things not yet in place: direct-reduction-grade feed, because current direct-reduction processes need high-grade ore, typically at least 64% iron, which is under 20% of global supply [S159]; a pellet plant or a supply of pellets; and about 10 GJ of gas per tonne of DRI, or, in time, hydrogen [S116]. The government’s 2026 to 2030 iron-ore programme for Mbalam, Bipindi-Grand Zambi and Kribi-Lobé [S43] and the mineral terminal at Kribi together create the conditions for a concentration and pelletising step at the coast, from which a direct-reduction module could draw.

Carbon-competitive exports. Steel and iron units exported to the European Union are now subject to the carbon border adjustment mechanism, with a certificate price of €82.32 per tonne of CO₂ in the third quarter of 2026 [S103] (see White paper 06, Chapter 5). Iron made with gas, and later with hydrogen produced from Cameroon’s hydropower, on a grid that was about 90% hydro in 2025 [S60], could become a competitive low-carbon export as well as a domestic input.

Rail and the interior. With the railway in service to Édéa, steel from Kribi can reach the interior and the CEMAC corridors by rail, and scrap and other inputs can return.

Zone expansion. Release further phases of the zone against demonstrated demand, using the extensible character of the 4,000 ha integrated zone [S15].

10.5 Financing the enablers

The enabling infrastructure is not cheap, but it is small relative to the industry it would make possible, and most of it has an identifiable payer. Published costs give a sense of scale: about 35 bn FCFA for the 225 kV line and substation [S25], about 21.5 bn FCFA for the container yard expansion [S30], about 3.5 bn FCFA to service 20 ha of plots at Mboro [S18], about US$2 billion reported for the mineral terminal at full scale [S33], and €795 million for KPIZ’s fifteen-year zone plan [S04].

Three financing principles fit Cameroon’s situation. Users should pay where a user is identifiable. A tenant’s own high-voltage bay, compensation equipment, siding or covered berth section can be financed by the tenant or recovered through a dedicated tariff. Shared public goods should be financed by the zone and its development partners. The strategic environmental assessment, the stormwater system, the hazardous-waste facility and the transmission reinforcements for the second power stage benefit every tenant and are suited to the AfDB-led package, which is designed to mobilise about €411 million of public finance to catalyse about €384 million of private investment [S07]. Anchor tenants should commit early to de-risk the shared assets. Long-term take-or-pay commitments for power capacity, water and berth time give lenders to the shared infrastructure the revenue certainty they need.

Fiscal space is limited. In October 2026 the IMF described Cameroon as at high overall risk of debt distress [S167]. That argues for structures in which the State’s direct contribution is concentrated on land, regulation and coordination, while infrastructure is financed through concessions, development-finance loans and user charges. The 2025 investment ordinance already conditions incentives on proof of financing, local skills programmes and job creation [S23], which aligns private commitments with the zone’s public objectives.

10.6 Milestones and indicators

Table 10.1 illustrativeIllustrative milestones and indicators for a Kribi steel platform

Source: dated milestones from the sources cited; other dates are illustrative and reflect the sequencing logic of Chapter 9.

10.7 Who does what

Table 10.2 derivedRoles in building the Kribi steel platform

Source: Cameroon Steel analysis of mandates described in the sources cited.

10.8 What a platform would look like in 2040

If the three steps are delivered, Kribi in 2040 would host several melt shops and rolling mills, a direct-reduction module using Cameroonian ore, a sections mill, and a ring of suppliers and fabricators, served by a dedicated bulk berth, a firm high-voltage supply of several hundred megawatts, a railway to Édéa and the interior, and shared water, waste and gas services. It would supply Cameroon’s and its neighbours’ construction with steel made in the region, replace a large part of the region’s imports of billets and sections, and export iron units and steel along the Gulf of Guinea and to carbon-regulated markets. It would also be the place where a share of Cameroon’s iron ore is transformed at home, as the Mining Code intends.

None of this is assured. But each step has a precedent in the port-industrial zones that have succeeded elsewhere (Chapter 8), and each depends on decisions that can be taken in the next two years.