White paper 01 · Annex B
Glossary and abbreviations
Terms are defined as they are used in this paper. Abbreviations of institutions follow their usual form in Cameroon, in French where that is the common usage.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| AfCFTA | African Continental Free Trade Area, the continental trade agreement ratified by Cameroon in 2020 |
| AfDB | African Development Bank |
| Agglomeration | Turning fine ore or concentrate into lumps a furnace can use, mainly by pelletising or sintering |
| Alumina (Al2O3) | Aluminium oxide, an impurity in iron ore that forms part of the gangue |
| ANOR | Agence des Normes et de la Qualité, Cameroon’s standards and quality agency |
| Apparent steel use | Production plus imports minus exports of finished steel products |
| ARSEL | Agence de Régulation du Secteur de l’Électricité, the electricity regulator |
| BEAC | Banque des États de l’Afrique Centrale, the central bank of the CEMAC countries |
| BF | Blast furnace: a shaft furnace that melts iron-bearing materials with coke to make liquid pig iron |
| BF-BOF | The integrated route: blast furnace followed by a basic oxygen furnace |
| Billet | A semi-finished steel product of square section, cast from liquid steel and rolled into long products |
| CBAM | Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism of the European Union, charging for emissions embedded in imports |
| CEEAC | Communauté Économique des États de l’Afrique Centrale (Economic Community of Central African States) |
| CEMAC | Communauté Économique et Monétaire de l’Afrique Centrale (Central African Economic and Monetary Community) |
| CET | Common external tariff |
| CFR | Cost and freight: a price that includes sea freight to the destination port |
| Chapter 72, chapter 73 | Harmonised System chapters for iron and steel (72) and articles of iron and steel (73) |
| CMC | Cameroon Mining Company, holder of the Mbalam exploitation permit |
| Concentrate | Ore that has been ground and upgraded to a higher iron content by removing gangue |
| Continuous caster | Equipment that solidifies liquid steel into billets, blooms or slabs |
| DFI | Development-finance institution |
| DR grade | Iron ore or pellets pure enough for gas-based direct reduction; assessed on a basis of 67.5% Fe, 1.5% silica and 0.5% alumina |
| DRI | Direct-reduced iron: iron ore reduced in the solid state by a gas, also called sponge iron |
| DSO | Direct-shipping ore: ore rich enough to be sold after crushing and screening only |
| EAF | Electric arc furnace: a furnace that melts scrap, DRI or HBI with electricity |
| EITI | Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative |
| ESF | Electric smelting furnace: a furnace that melts DRI and separates gangue as slag before steelmaking |
| Export parity | The price a local buyer would pay to match what the seller earns by exporting, net of freight and port costs |
| FCFA | CFA franc of Central Africa, pegged to the euro at 655.957 FCFA per euro |
| Fe | Iron; ore grades are expressed as per cent of iron by weight |
| FOB | Free on board: a price at the exporting port, excluding sea freight |
| Gangue | The non-iron minerals in ore, mainly silica and alumina |
| Gated | Said of an investment that is made only once stated conditions are met; in this paper, the direct-reduction module, which RC-1 holds in reserve |
| H-beam | A heavy steel section with an H-shaped profile, used in structures |
| HBI | Hot-briquetted iron: DRI compacted while hot into dense briquettes that can be shipped safely |
| HS | Harmonised System of tariff nomenclature |
| IIMA | International Iron Metallics Association |
| INS | Institut National de la Statistique, Cameroon’s national statistics institute |
| Iron units | The iron-bearing charge of a steel furnace: scrap, DRI, HBI or pig iron |
| Itabirite | A banded iron formation of iron oxide and quartz, typically 30 to 40% Fe, which must be concentrated |
| JORC | The Australasian code for reporting mineral resources and ore reserves |
| KPDC | Kribi Power Development Corporation, operator of the Kribi gas power plant |
| KPIZ | Kribi Port Industrial Zone S.A., the company that develops and manages the Kribi integrated industrial zone |
| Ladle furnace | Equipment that reheats and refines liquid steel in the ladle before casting |
| LNG | Liquefied natural gas |
| Long products | Rebar, wire rod, merchant bars and sections, rolled from billets or blooms |
| Melt shop | The part of a steelworks that melts iron units and casts liquid steel |
| Merchant billet | A billet sold to another company for rolling, rather than rolled by the steelworks that cast it |
| Mscf, bcf, Tcf | Thousand, billion and trillion standard cubic feet of gas |
| Mtpa | Million tonnes per annum (a year) |
| NI 43-101 | Canadian standard for disclosure of mineral projects |
| PAK | Port Autonome de Kribi, the Kribi port authority |
| Pellet | A hardened ball of iron-ore concentrate used as furnace feed |
| Phase | One of the three investment phases of RC-1: Phase 1 (melt shop, bar and wire-rod mill, 0.3 Mtpa), Phase 2 (second melt line and light and medium sections mill), Phase 3 (melt-shop expansion and heavy-section mill, to 1 Mtpa); the direct-reduction module is held in reserve |
| RC-1 | Cameroon Steel’s reference configuration, a planning basis for the phased steelworks at Kribi |
| Rebar | Reinforcing bar for concrete |
| Shaft furnace | A vertical reactor in which ore pellets descend against a rising reducing gas to make DRI |
| Silica (SiO2) | Silicon dioxide, the main gangue mineral in iron ore |
| SND30 | Stratégie Nationale de Développement 2020-2030, Cameroon’s national development strategy |
| SNH | Société Nationale des Hydrocarbures, the national hydrocarbons company |
| Static VAR compensation | Fast reactive-power equipment that limits the voltage flicker an arc furnace causes on the grid |
| Wire rod | A hot-rolled long product of small round section, coiled, used for wire and mesh |
Cite this chapter
Cameroon Steel (2026). From ore to steel: Cameroon’s missing link is ironmaking, not rolling. White paper 01, annex B: Glossary and abbreviations. CS-WP-01. https://www.cameroon-steel.com/en/library/ore-to-steel/annex-glossary/
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