Electric steelmaking is the right route for Central Africa

Main findings

1. The route choice is a choice about iron units. Rolling, casting and refining are common to every route; what differs is how iron is obtained. Cameroon’s shortfall is in iron, not in rolling: billets became the country’s largest single steel import, at 161,400 t in 2023, three times the 2019 level [S05], while domestic rolling capacity exceeds demand [S06].
2. Electric routes cut CO₂ per tonne by 37 to 71%. worldsteel’s 2024 route averages are 2.34 t of CO₂ per tonne of crude steel for the blast furnace and oxygen converter, 1.47 t for DRI-EAF and 0.69 t for scrap-EAF [S01]. On Cameroon’s hydro-dominated grid, about 226 g CO₂/kWh in 2024 [S07], the electric routes’ advantage is larger still.
3. Capital per tonne is not what separates the routes; the size of the indivisible step is. On IEA-derived benchmarks in 2019 dollars, indicative capex is about US$500 to 900 per tonne of capacity for a new blast-furnace works, US$510 to 1,310 for gas DRI-EAF and US$330 to 560 for scrap-EAF [S02]; budgets announced from 2020 to 2026, which include rolling mills and site works, run higher, from about US$660 to 1,560 per tonne (Chapter 2). But a blast furnace is economic only at several million tonnes a year, while melt shops and mills of about 0.3 Mt a year are being ordered in Africa today [S08, S09].
4. Induction furnaces and smelting reduction do not fit. Induction furnaces refine poorly; most Indian induction-furnace steel made from DRI exceeded the phosphorus limits of national and ASTM standards [S10]. Smelting reduction still feeds an oxygen converter, depends on coal and is commercial at only a few sites [S11, S12].
5. A 1 Mtpa melt shop needs about 1.2 Mt of iron units a year. RC-1, Cameroon Steel’s reference configuration, implies about 363,000 t in Phase 1 and 1.21 Mt at full development (derived) [S03]. Cameroon collects of the order of 0.1 Mt of scrap a year (derived), already used by existing mills; the only national study estimated scrap arising at 53,000 to 61,833 t a year [S13]. RC-1 therefore assumes that the plant can buy only about 30,000 t of domestic scrap a year (range 0 to 60,000 t) [S03].
6. Phase 1 should run on scrap and imported DRI or HBI. RC-1 assumes about 30% DRI or HBI in the Phase 1 charge, within a range of 20 to 50% [S03]. HBI is the practical traded form because it ships with surface ventilation, whereas cold DRI must travel under inert gas [S14, S15]. Two suppliers per iron unit and covered storage are the minimum.
7. Cameroonian ore needs a concentrator and a pellet plant before it can feed a shaft furnace. Direct reduction needs ore of at least 64% iron [S16], and traded DR grade is typically 67 to 68% [S17]. Mbalam’s JORC reserve grades 62.2% iron with 7.3% silica and alumina [S18]; testwork on Mbalam itabirite produced a 68% iron DR concentrate [S19]. That product exists only at testwork scale.
8. Gas and hydrogen set the pace of domestic ironmaking. A 1 Mtpa DRI module would need about 9 bcf of gas a year, about 12% of Cameroon’s 2025 output (derived) [S20, S21]. Hydrogen-ready shaft furnaces can run on any mix of gas and hydrogen without fundamental changes to the furnace [S22], but full hydrogen operation for 1 Mt of DRI would need about 2.7 TWh of electricity a year (derived), so blending must follow new low-carbon power.
9. One furnace of the 40 t class can carry most of Phase 1; the full 0.3 Mtpa needs high availability or a larger transformer. At the RC-1 planning value of 450 kWh per tonne of liquid steel, a heat of about 40 t takes about 55 minutes tap to tap; at about 490 kWh/t, the upper planning value with 30% DRI or HBI in the charge, about 59 minutes. Nameplate output, about 8,000 heats a year, then needs about 7,300 to 7,900 of the 8,760 hours in a year, so at a realistic 7,000 to 7,700 operating hours Phase 1 delivers about 270,000 to 300,000 t of finished products (derived) [S03]. The furnace offers schedulable load, melting around the grid’s peaks, not interruptible load. Arc furnaces cause flicker; other rebar mills have had to retrofit STATCOM compensators under regulatory pressure [S23, S24]. Phase 1’s maximum demand, about 55 MVA (assumed), fits the 100 MW initial stage of the zone’s 225 kV line [S03, S25].
10. Quality and data are part of the product. Cameroon’s rebar standard NC 236 is mandatory and enforced [S26, S27]. An EAF with a ladle furnace and an in-line quench-and-self-temper mill makes ductile, weldable bars to NC 236, BS 4449 and ASTM A615 [S28, S29, S30]. Traceability from heat to bundle, energy management (about 4% savings in the first year in ISO 50001 plants [S31]) and measured CO₂ per product complete the design.