Successful producers matched ironmaking to their gas, their ore and their market

4.1 Six cases, one question

Every country with iron ore faces the same choice: export it, or turn some of it into iron and steel at home. The answer depends on four things that vary from country to country: the grade of the ore, the energy available to reduce it, the size and protection of the domestic market, and the logistics that connect mine, plant and port. Table 4.1 compares six producers on those four dimensions, chosen because each illuminates a decision Cameroon now faces.

Table 4.1 Six producers compared on the four determinants of an ore-to-steel chain

Source: Cameroon Steel synthesis of [G05], [T13], [A04], [A07], [N14], [G01], [N10], [N12], [N13], [N05], [N06] and sources cited in this chapter.

4.2 Egypt: gas-based direct reduction on imported pellets

Egypt is Africa’s largest steel producer, with 10.6 Mt of crude steel in 2025 [G05], and its industry is built on gas-based direct reduction. worldsteel puts Egyptian DRI output at 6.6 Mt in 2025, and Midrex at 6.06 Mt [G05][T13]. Egypt is listed among the countries whose DR plants run on merchant pellets bought on the world market [N01]: its own ore is not of DR grade. The chain was assembled from imported pellets, domestic gas and electric arc furnaces, and the largest producer, Ezz Steel, now has about 7 Mtpa of rolling capacity, 2.3 Mtpa of it for hot-rolled coil and 4.7 Mtpa for long products [A07].

Egyptian plants are among the most efficient in the world. Suez Steel’s modernised DR plant now consumes about 2.2 Gcal of gas and 93 kWh of electricity per tonne of DRI [A07]; its technology supplier reported a sustained figure below 2.2 Gcal, about 9.2 GJ per tonne [T10]. Beshay Steel commissioned a 2 Mtpa DRI module during its 2021 to 2025 programme [A07].

Two features of Egypt’s experience are directly relevant to Cameroon. First, rolling capacity outran ironmaking: the sector has about 20 Mtpa of rolling capacity running at roughly 50% [A07], and the structure of its imports has shifted accordingly. Finished products made up 95% of steel imports in 2021 and 55% in 2025, while semi-finished steel rose from 5% to 45% [A07]. That is Cameroon’s situation on a larger scale: mills that need billets more than the market needs bars.

Second, Egypt protects semi-finished steel as well as finished products. Since April 2026 billets carry a 13% duty with a minimum of US$65/t and an annual quota of 176,700 t, hot-rolled coil 13.6% with a minimum of US$75.25/t, and Chinese rebar an anti-dumping duty of 29% [A06][A07]. The vulnerability of the model is its feed: DR plants that depend on seaborne pellets are exposed to the supply tightness described in Chapter 2, with the Middle East and North Africa alone expected to need 30 to 40 Mtpa more DR pellets within a few years [N02].

4.3 Algeria: from importer to net exporter in four years

Algeria shows how fast a gas-rich country can substitute imports once it commits to direct reduction at scale. In 2021 it ran a steel deficit of about 1 Mt; by 2025 it was a net exporter of about 1 Mt, and imports fell from 35% to 16% of consumption [A03][A04]. Crude steel output reached 5.5 Mt in 2025, up from 4.5 Mt in 2024 [G05].

The engine of that change was foreign direct investment in gas-based DRI-EAF complexes. Tosyali Algérie, a Turkish-owned complex near Oran, has 6.2 Mtpa of steelmaking capacity, 5 Mtpa of DRI capacity, a third EAF of 2.7 Mtpa and a hot strip mill of 2.5 Mtpa [A04]. Algerian Qatari Steel at Bellara added a 2.5 Mtpa DRI module in 2021 to 2.2 Mtpa of steelmaking, and the smaller Ozmert plant a 0.5 Mtpa DRI module in 2024 [A04]. The State’s historic integrated works at El Hadjar, with 2 Mtpa of nominal capacity, produces 1 to 1.5 Mtpa on worn equipment [A04].

Source: [A03], [A04] (Algeria); [A07] (Egypt).

The policy package was generous. Domestic gas for industry cost less than 10% of production costs in 2023 to 2025, saving Tosyali an estimated US$50 to 80 per tonne of finished steel; imports face a 30% basic duty; Algerian products enjoy a price preference of up to 25% in public procurement; and an import-agency certificate is refused automatically where similar local production exists [A04]. Algeria is now integrating backwards into ore: a 950 km railway linking the Gara Djebilet deposit to Béchar and the north was inaugurated in early 2026, and a first processing unit of 4 Mtpa of ore was due to start by the end of April 2026, with Tosyali’s complex among the intended users [N15].

The other side of the ledger is cost and exposure. Tosyali’s newest complex was announced at US$2.5 bn for 1.6 Mtpa, about US$1,560 per tonne of capacity [A26]. And the United States imposed, in July 2026, an anti-dumping duty of 127.32% and a countervailing duty of 72.94% on Algerian rebar, partly on the ground that cheap gas is a subsidy [A04]. A chain built on subsidised energy can win its home market and lose its export markets.

4.4 Nigeria: the cost of a mismatched megaproject

Nigeria is the cautionary tale of African steel. The Ajaokuta steel complex was begun around 1979 under a cooperation agreement with the Soviet Union, around a blast furnace designed to use ore from Itakpe, about 65 km away. Some 47 years later, its blast furnace has never been blown and it has never produced liquid steel; Itakpe ore has never been fully produced and delivered to the plant, and the rail links that were to connect mine, mill and port remain incomplete [N14]. In Warri, the Delta Steel direct-reduction plant, with 1.02 Mtpa of capacity built in 1982, is idle [T13].

Ajaokuta failed on each of the four determinants. Its technology, a blast furnace, required coking coal Nigeria does not produce in quantity and ore of a quality Itakpe did not deliver; its scale was set by politics rather than by the market; its logistics were never completed; and the project was repeatedly rescued with public money rather than disciplined by customers. Political claims that it would create half a million jobs [P05] show how large promises can obscure basic engineering questions.

Nigeria still has the demand. Its chapter 72 imports were US$930.4 m in 2021 and US$225.7 m in 2024, after the naira devaluation compressed them [C07]. Global Energy Monitor counts only 0.6 Mtpa of operating steel capacity in plants of at least 0.5 Mtpa, but 3.0 Mtpa of EAF capacity in development [G18], including a US$450 m hot-rolled coil plant [A16]. The lesson for Cameroon is not that Africa cannot make steel; it is that the chain must be built in modules that work at each step, with feed and logistics secured before the furnace.

4.5 India: a large market and captive ore

India is the world’s second-largest steel producer, with 164.9 Mt of crude steel in 2025, up 10.4% [G01]. Its National Steel Policy of 2017 set targets of 300 Mt of crude steel capacity and 255 Mt of production by 2030-31, with per-capita consumption rising to 158 kg [N10]. India is also the world’s largest maker of DRI, 58.8 Mt in 2025, but 49.9 Mt of that came from coal-fired rotary kilns and only 8.9 Mt from gas [T13]. Coal-based DRI emits about three times as much CO₂ directly as gas-based DRI [T02], which exposes Indian exporters to carbon border measures.

India illustrates two policy lessons. The first is that a large domestic market and captive ore make scale possible: steelmakers can integrate from mine to mill because the market absorbs their output. The second is that export taxes on ore are a blunt instrument. In May 2022 India imposed a 50% duty on exports of low-grade iron-ore lumps and fines and a 45% duty on pellets, to cool domestic prices; it withdrew them in November 2022 [N11]. The measure redirected ore to domestic mills for six months but disrupted miners, pellet makers and their customers, and did not survive the first change in market conditions.

Cameroon’s approach under the 2023 Mining Code is different in kind. It does not tax exports; it obliges each convention to set aside a minimum share of production for local transformation [Z42]. A quantity rule written into long-term conventions is more predictable for investors than a tax that changes with prices, provided the rule is backed by clear offtake terms. Chapter 5 discusses what those terms should contain.

4.6 Vietnam: a port-based complex can run on imported ore

Vietnam’s crude steel output reached 24.7 Mt in 2025, a five-year high and 12% more than in 2024, according to the Vietnam Steel Association; exports rose to 3.15 Mt [N12]. Growth accelerated in 2026: Vietnam’s output rose 29.1% year on year in January to August, to 20.6 Mt [G04].

The country’s largest producer built its flagship integrated complex at Dung Quat, on the coast of Quang Ngai province, and imports most of its iron ore because domestic sources are limited. In May 2026 it proposed to develop the Thach Khe deposit, estimated at about 500 Mt, to reduce that dependence [N13]. Vietnam therefore reversed the sequence many ore-rich countries follow: it built a deep-water, port-based steel complex first, served a fast-growing construction market, and is only now looking to integrate back into domestic ore. It also uses trade defence to protect new capacity, with provisional anti-dumping duties of 19.38 to 27.83% on Chinese hot-rolled coil from March 2025 [G27], and it moves into specialised products: a 700,000 t/yr rail and special-steel plant broke ground in 2026 [N12].

For Cameroon, Vietnam’s lesson is that a coastal plant with good port access can start on imported raw materials, as Dung Quat did with imported ore and coal, and integrate backwards when its own ore is ready. That is the logic of the phased chain proposed in Chapter 6, which starts instead on imported iron units for an electric arc furnace.

4.7 Brazil: ore wealth does not make a steel industry by itself

Brazil exported a record 416.4 Mt of iron ore in 2025, the first time its shipments exceeded 400 Mt [N05]. Its crude steel output the same year was 33.3 Mt, down 1.6% [N06]. The ratio, more than twelve tonnes of ore exported for every tonne of steel made, shows that abundant high-grade ore and a large economy do not by themselves create a proportionate steel industry; Brazilian mills face the same import competition as everyone else and the country has used quotas on 11 steel products, with a 25% duty above quota, since 2024 [G29].

Source: [N05], [N06] (Brazil); [G05], [T13] (Africa). Africa’s ore exports refer to 2024; other values to 2025.

Brazil also offers the most relevant model of downstream investment by an ore miner. The Pecém steel company (CSP) in Ceará, a 3 Mtpa blast-furnace slab plant commissioned in 2016 and linked by conveyor to a deep-water port, was built by the miner Vale with the Korean steelmakers POSCO and Dongkuk [N07]. ArcelorMittal bought it in March 2023 at an enterprise value of about US$2.2 bn and cited the option of adding direct reduction and rolling at the site [N07]. In October 2022 Vale signed agreements with Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman to study "mega hubs" in port industrial zones that would make HBI and steel products from Vale’s agglomerated ore, noting that gas-based HBI emits about 60% less CO₂ than blast-furnace pig iron [N08].

The pattern is clear: miners that want to add value build or co-invest in iron and steel plants at ports with access to gas, in partnership with established steelmakers that bring technology and markets. Kribi offers the same combination of port, gas and ore within one industrial zone.

4.8 Guinea and Mauritania: beneficiation written into the deal

Africa’s newest iron-ore giant takes a further step. Simandou in Guinea, which began operations in November 2025 and is designed for up to 120 Mtpa [A10][N09], operates under a co-development agreement that requires the companies to submit a feasibility study for either a 500,000 t/yr steel mill or a 2 Mtpa pellet plant within two years of the mine entering production. A study for a 2 Mtpa pellet plant was reviewed by the mines ministry in June 2026; it projects up to 1,950 construction jobs and 788 permanent positions [N09]. Mauritania’s state miner SNIM is studying a 2.5 Mtpa green-iron project with a partner [A19], and Namibia opened Africa’s first hydrogen-based iron pilot in April 2025 [D14].

These agreements share a feature that Cameroon can borrow: the beneficiation obligation is specific (a pellet plant or a mill of stated size), time-bound (two years from first production) and modest relative to the mine (2 Mt of pellets against up to 120 Mt of ore).

4.9 Seven lessons for Cameroon

The six country cases and the newer African conventions point to seven practical lessons.

1. Match the ironmaking route to the energy you have. Egypt and Algeria chose gas-based direct reduction because they have gas; Nigeria chose a coal-based blast furnace without coking coal. Cameroon’s gas and hydro power point to DRI-EAF, not to a blast furnace.
2. Secure the feed before building the furnace. Egypt and Algeria began on imported pellets and Algeria is only now bringing its own ore on line; Ajaokuta never received its ore. A Cameroonian DR plant should be built when DR-grade concentrate is assured, from local or imported sources.
3. Build in modules and grow with the market. DR modules range from 0.25 Mtpa to 2.5 Mtpa [T13]; EAF mini-mills of 0.3 to 0.5 Mtpa are standard [T20][T21]. Oversized single projects fail.
4. Start where the import bill is. Egypt’s import mix shifted to semis as rolling outgrew ironmaking. In Cameroon, billets are the largest import; making them locally is the first step.
5. Protect intelligently and temporarily. Algeria’s and Egypt’s trade measures cover semis as well as finished goods, and Vietnam uses trade remedies rather than bans. Protection should reward ironmaking and be paired with competition and quality standards.
6. Bring in anchor partners with technology and markets. Tosyali in Algeria and the Korean steelmakers at Pecém brought proven processes and offtake.
7. Put the plant at the port. Vietnam’s Dung Quat, Brazil’s Pecém and Vale’s Gulf hubs all sit at deep-water ports with access to gas or power. Kribi is Cameroon’s equivalent.