炼铁是最大价值所在，炼钢厂是通向它的大门

On dated 2025 and 2026 market prices, ore and ironmaking together account for 64 to 72% of the market value of a tonne of reinforcing bar, rolling for 13 to 22% and melting for 6 to 15%. Cameroon’s mills capture today only the rolling step. A melt shop adds the melting step and, more importantly, creates the outlet that makes local ironmaking possible; carried through direct reduction, melting and rolling, each tonne of Cameroonian concentrate would be worth about 3.6 times its value as ore, and about 2.6 times as DRI alone. These figures are illustrative gross price spreads: they describe where value sits, not value added or anyone’s profit.

8.1 Method: from dated prices to value per tonne of rebar

There is no single published price chain from Cameroonian ore to Cameroonian rebar, because the intermediate products are not traded in Cameroon. The approach used here is transparent and reproducible:

1. take a dated international price for the main iron-bearing product of each step (ore, iron units, billets, rebar);
2. convert each price into its contribution to one tonne of finished rebar, using the tonnes of each product needed per tonne of rebar;
3. read the difference between successive steps as the market value that step adds.

The difference is a gross spread over the iron-bearing input. It is not value added in the national-accounts sense, which would also deduct energy, consumables and services, and it is not a profit margin, which would also deduct labour, maintenance, depreciation and financing. It shows where in the chain market value is created, which is the question that matters for policy.

Table 8.1 Price inputs used in the value-capture analysis

Source: as shown. FOB: free on board at the exporting port; CFR: cost and freight to the destination port.

The mass ratios come from RC-1’s planning yields and from published industry ratios (Annex A): one tonne of rebar needs about 1.04 t of billets (rolling yield 96%), 1.06 t of liquid steel (casting yield 98%), 1.21 t of iron units (metallic yield 88%) [F01], and, if those iron units are DRI, about 1.75 t of DR-grade pellets at 1.45 t per tonne of DRI [N01].

Three simplifications should be kept in mind. The prices refer to different places and dates between January and October 2026, with the ore price as a 2025 average. The ore is valued at the 62% Fe index although DR-grade pellets carry a premium that is negotiated in quarterly contracts and not publicly reported [N16]; this understates the ore and pelletising step and overstates the reduction step by the same amount, but does not change their sum. And international prices are used throughout, although Cameroonian rebar sells at a regulated domestic price.

8.2 Where the value is made

With the central prices, the value of a tonne of rebar, US$625, builds up as follows (Figure 8.1):

• ore: 1.75 t at US$100 = about US$175, or 28%;
• pelletising and direct reduction: 1.21 t of iron units at US$370 = about US$447, an increment of about US$272, or 43%;
• melting and casting: 1.04 t of billets at US$467.5 = about US$487, an increment of about US$40, or 6%;
• rolling: rebar at US$625, an increment of about US$138, or 22%.

Source: Cameroon Steel calculation from [G31], [N03], [G34], RC-1 yields [F01] and pellet ratio [N01]; method in Annex A. Status: illustrative.

The shares move with prices, but the ranking does not. Table 8.2 recalculates the build-up under two alternative cases: a low iron-unit case, with Russian HBI at US$330/t and ore at US$97/t, and a high billet case, with billets valued at the delivered ex-CIS price into Türkiye of US$520/t. In every case, ore and ironmaking together account for 64 to 72% of the value of a tonne of rebar, while melting and rolling together account for 28 to 36%.

Table 8.2 Value per tonne of rebar by step under three price cases (US$ and share of US$625)

Source: Cameroon Steel calculation; inputs in Table 8.1 and Annex A. Shares may not add to 100% because of rounding. Status: illustrative.

The melting step deserves comment, because it is the step that a first-phase melt shop captures. On imported iron units at international prices it is thin: billets made from HBI at US$370 are worth only about US$40 more per tonne of rebar than the HBI itself, and billets made from scrap bought at the Turkish import price of US$403/t [G34] would be worth almost exactly what the scrap cost. That is why Chinese billets at US$465 to 470/t FOB, a product of overcapacity [G16], are hard to beat with imported feed. A Cameroonian melt shop earns its place in three other ways: by avoiding billet freight and paying duty only on the metallic charge rather than on the billet, since imported scrap, DRI and HBI carry the same 10% as billets [P24]; by gaining access, over time, to cheaper local iron units, first local scrap and later local DRI; and by giving the country the furnace that local iron units need. The melt shop is the door to the ironmaking prize, not the prize itself. White paper 09 (Chapter 7) tests a Kribi melt shop on imported iron units against delivered imports in detail, and White paper 04 (Chapter 8) sets out the series’ indicative comparison of the cost of a Kribi billet with a delivered import; this chapter does not restate their cost ranges.

8.3 What Cameroon captures today, and under each configuration

Applying the three price cases to the configurations of Chapter 6 gives the share of the gross price build-up of a tonne of rebar that occurs in Cameroon (Figure ES.1 in the executive summary):

• today, with imported billets re-rolled in Douala, about 22%, or 13 to 22% across the price cases;
• with a melt shop on imported iron units (Phase 1), about 28%, or 28 to 36%;
• with direct reduction on imported pellets, about 72% (72 to 73%), less the pellet premium that would accrue abroad;
• with the full chain from Cameroonian DR-grade ore, the whole gross spread by construction and, in practice, most of it once imported electrodes, alloys, refractories, spares and the foreign capital charge are deducted.

These shares measure where the gross price build-up occurs, not value added: each also contains imported consumables and services, and the capital charge of foreign-financed plant, which a national-accounts measure would deduct.

Today’s figure understates what Cameroonian mills earn, because the domestic rebar price is protected. In October 2023 the homologated Douala price of a 12 mm FE500 bar implied about 633,000 FCFA/t, roughly €965/t [C44], when Turkish rebar was offered for export at US$550 to 575/t FOB [G37]. That premium is paid by Cameroonian builders and households through the import ban; it is a transfer within the economy rather than value created by the chain. A phased chain should aim to earn its margin from making iron, not from the ban.

A second way to see the prize is to follow one tonne of DR-grade concentrate (Figure 8.2). Sold as ore at the 62% Fe index, it would fetch about US$100. Turned into DRI, at 1.45 t of pellets per tonne of DRI, it yields products worth about US$255; as billets, about US$278; as rebar, about US$357, roughly 3.6 times its value as ore.

Source: Cameroon Steel calculation from [G31], [N03], [G34], [F01], [N01]. Status: illustrative.

At the scale of RC-1’s DR module, the numbers become national. A 1 Mtpa DRI module would use about 1.45 Mtpa of DR-grade concentrate. Sold as ore at US$100/t, that concentrate would earn about US$145 m a year. Reduced to DRI, it would become about US$370 m of iron units; melted and rolled, about 0.83 Mt of finished long products worth about US$517 m at the central rebar price. The difference, about US$370 m a year of additional gross output, is what local transformation of a single DR module’s worth of ore can add to the economy before costs. It is not profit, and it requires capital, energy and labour to earn; but it is the order of magnitude that should inform the design of the 15% rule.

8.4 Foreign exchange: the case rests on local iron units

Steel is a large item in Cameroon’s external accounts. Chapter 72 imports cost 170.1 bn FCFA, about €259 m, in 2025, and chapters 72 and 73 together accounted for 13.0% of the trade deficit [C05]. Billets alone were about 161 kt in 2023 [C06]; at the October 2026 Chinese export price of about US$467.5/t they would be worth about US$75 m, although Comtrade’s declared value was about twice that [C06][G34].

The foreign-exchange effect of each step differs sharply.

• A melt shop on imported iron units saves the foreign exchange spent on billets but spends most of it again on HBI and imported scrap. Per tonne of rebar, imported iron units cost about US$447 against about US$487 for the billets they replace; the net saving is the melting increment, the avoided freight on billets and the domestic electricity, labour and services used in melting.
• Direct reduction on Cameroonian concentrate saves almost all of that US$447 per tonne of rebar, since ore, gas and electricity are domestic. This is where the foreign-exchange case for local ironmaking lies.
• Merchant billets reduce the import bill directly only where they replace imported billets in the re-rollers’ charge, about 60% of it today [C38]; billets rolled into more domestic rebar displace domestic production rather than imports.
• Exports add foreign exchange. At full RC-1 capacity of 1 Mtpa, output would exceed Cameroon’s total chapter 72 imports of 412 kt more than twice over [C05], so more than half of the output would be sold abroad. As an illustration only, 0.5 Mtpa sold at the October 2026 Turkish rebar price of US$620 to 630/t FOB would be worth about US$310 to 315 m a year [G34]; realised prices in CEMAC markets would differ.

White paper 09 reaches the same conclusion with a fuller accounting of imported content, including electrodes, alloys, refractories and spares. On imported scrap and HBI, a Kribi works would retain about US$47 to 181 of foreign exchange per tonne of rebar, against US$48 to 170 for today’s re-rolling of imported billets, and about US$545 to 645 with domestic iron units (White paper 09, Chapter 9). Phase 1 on imported iron units therefore saves about what the re-rollers already save; the large saving comes only with domestic iron.

Domestic gas and power also change the balance. At 2025 Cameroonian prices, the gas for a tonne of DRI would cost about US$29 to 51 (Annex A) [E04], paid to domestic producers rather than to foreign suppliers of HBI or billets.

8.5 Jobs and industrial value added

RC-1 indicates about 500 direct jobs (450 to 550) and about 1,000 indirect jobs (800 to 1,500) for Phase 1, and about 1,100 direct jobs (900 to 1,300) at the full capacity of 1 Mtpa, before any DR module [F01]. These figures sit within the range of comparable plants. Prometal reports about 1,000 direct jobs for about 360 kt/yr of finished steel [C25]; Kenya’s ore-based Devki plant at Kwale, 500 kt/yr, reported 2,500 direct and 9,000 indirect jobs at its opening [A23]; and US micro-mills of about 0.39 to 0.45 Mtpa (430,000 to 500,000 tons as announced, read as US short tons, the unit of Commercial Metals Company’s reports) employ about 200 to 230 people [T20][T23].

Indirect employment depends on the depth of local supply chains. Global evidence suggests that every two jobs in steel support thirteen in its supply chain [P01], and the European steel industry reports Type I and Type II employment multipliers of 6.2 and 8.6 [P02]. Applied to Cameroon these are upper bounds, because local suppliers of refractories, spare parts, engineering and logistics are thinner than in Europe. The Mining Code’s rule that 95% of non-skilled mining jobs go to Cameroonians [O36] and the investment ordinance’s job criterion [Z39] point in the same direction: local transformation is also a strategy for skilled industrial employment.

At the macroeconomic level, manufacturing accounted for about 13.3% of GDP in 2025 [C09] against the SND30 target of 25% by 2030 [P13]. Few single projects can move that ratio; an ore-to-steel chain at the scale of 1 Mtpa is one of them.

8.6 What the economics imply for policy and investment

Four conclusions follow.

1. The value is upstream. Ore and ironmaking hold about two-thirds or more of a tonne of rebar’s market value under every price case tested. Policies that protect only rolling protect a minor share of the chain.
2. A melt shop is necessary but not sufficient. On imported iron units it captures a modest increment; its strategic value is as the outlet without which local DRI has no buyer.
3. The 15% rule should be judged by the iron it creates. One DR module’s worth of concentrate is worth about US$145 m a year as ore and about US$517 m as finished long products. A rule satisfied by crushing ore would capture none of that difference.
4. Foreign exchange follows iron units. The large and durable saving comes when ore, gas and power are domestic and only the steel crosses the border.