技术风险与决策标准：在投入前化解重大风险

10.1 Technology risk is concentrated at a few interfaces

Most of the equipment in a long-products steelworks is mature: arc furnaces, ladle furnaces, billet casters and bar mills have been built in large numbers for decades, including recently in Africa [S08, S09]. The risks lie where the plant depends on systems outside its fence (the grid, the gas network, the mine, the port) and where a new organisation must learn to run complex equipment. Table 10.1 lists the main technology risks, the evidence behind each, the early signals to watch and the mitigations.

Table 10.1 Technology risk register for the phased electric pathway

Source: Cameroon Steel assessment, using the evidence cited in each row.

10.2 Four gates, each opened by evidence rather than by date

A phased pathway is only as good as the discipline with which each step is decided. Figure 10.1 sets out four decision gates. At each gate, the decision is "go" if the evidence meets the criteria, "hold" if it is incomplete and "redesign" if it shows that the plan must change. The gates are linked to evidence, not to dates: the schedule in Chapter 9 shows when each gate is targeted, not when it must be passed.

Source: Cameroon Steel.

Gate 1, the Phase 1 investment decision, is the most consequential. It requires a firm connection to the zone’s 225 kV supply, with a flicker and harmonics study accepted by the grid operator; term contracts or binding offers for scrap and DRI or HBI from at least two sources each, at prices that leave a positive spread against delivered billet imports; a product certification path for NC 236 and the main international grades; completed site studies and an approved environmental and social impact assessment, disclosed for the period that lenders require before board approval (60 days for IFC’s highest-risk category) [S106]; and a supplier scope with performance guarantees for electricity per tonne at the planned DRI share, furnace availability, yield and capacity, with a transformer rating that delivers the expected sustained output of 270,000 to 300,000 t.

Gate 2, the Phase 2 section mill and second melt line, should require twelve months of Phase 1 operation at or near design yield, energy and capacity; confirmed demand and prices for angles, channels and flats; and confirmation that the second melt line fits within the available electrical capacity and compensator.

Gate 3, Phase 3 to 1 Mtpa, requires the zone line’s later stage of 330 to 400 MW to be contracted [S25]; a proven market and export channel for heavy sections; a caster solution for blooms or beam blanks; and a metallics plan for about 1.2 Mt of iron units a year.

Gate 4, the domestic direct-reduction module, requires DR-grade concentrate of at least 67% iron, with low gangue, proven at pilot scale from a defined ore body; a secured pellet supply; audited gas reserves and a long-term gas contract for the module’s life; and a hydrogen-ready shaft-furnace design with a monitoring, reporting and verification plan for CO₂.

10.3 The alternatives carry larger risks

Decision-makers should weigh the pathway’s risks against those of the alternatives, not against an imaginary risk-free option.

A re-rolling mill without a melt shop would be cheaper and faster, but it would add rolling capacity to a market that already has more than it uses [S06] and would depend entirely on imported billets, whose supply and prices it cannot control [S05, S72]. It would add the least value and transfer the most risk to the State’s foreign-exchange balance.

A blast-furnace works would need several million tonnes a year of capacity to be efficient, imported coking coal and the highest carbon intensity of any route, 2.34 t of CO₂ per tonne on worldsteel’s 2024 average [S01]. It would commit all of its capital before producing a tonne, and it could not easily scale down if demand disappointed.

An induction-furnace plant would be cheap, but it would struggle to meet phosphorus limits and the ductility requirements of modern rebar standards without additional refining [S10], in a market whose regulators are actively enforcing quality [S26, S27].

A direct-reduction plant built first would tie the start of steelmaking to the readiness of a concentrator, a pellet plant and a gas contract, none of which exists today (Chapter 4). It would postpone production by years and raise the capital required before any revenue.

The phased electric route is the only option that starts producing within a few years, uses capital in steps, meets quality standards with proven equipment and keeps the path to Cameroonian iron open.

10.4 Who carries which risk

A risk is best carried by the party that can control it. For the phased pathway, the allocation is broadly clear.

The technology supplier carries the performance of the equipment: capacity, yield, energy use and availability, backed by guarantees and tests. The grid operator and the zone carry the delivery of the connection at the agreed capacity and, with the plant, the agreed power-quality limits. Cameroon Steel carries operations, metallics procurement, product quality, safety and environmental performance. The mining company carries the proof of a DR-grade concentrate, and the gas producer and the State the availability, pricing and taxation of gas for any direct-reduction module. Lenders will expect each of these allocations to be written into contracts before they commit.

Some risks cannot be transferred: market demand, the price of imported iron units and the evolution of carbon rules. The pathway handles them by keeping each commitment small enough to be justified on its own results.

10.5 Indicators to watch after start-up

Once Phase 1 runs, a small set of indicators will show whether the technology choice is delivering. They should be reported regularly to the board and, in summary, to lenders and the public:

• electricity per tonne of liquid steel, against the guaranteed value, and the DRI share of the charge;
• tap-to-tap time and furnace availability, against the 55 to 59 minutes and 7,000 to 7,700 operating hours a year that Phase 1 planning assumes;
• metallic yield and casting-and-rolling yield, against the RC-1 assumptions of 0.88 and 0.94 [S03];
• flicker (Pst and Plt) and harmonic distortion at the connection point, against the limits in the connection agreement;
• the share of cast lots certified first time to NC 236 and international grades;
• CO₂ per tonne of product, measured, against the RC-1 estimate [S03];
• lost-time injuries and process-safety incidents.

10.6 A checklist for decision-makers

The questions in Table 10.2 are designed to be asked at any stage of the project by anyone who needs to judge its technical progress: a ministry adviser reviewing incentives, a development-finance officer preparing a credit paper, an engineer reviewing a design or a journalist following the project.

Table 10.2 Checklist for decision-makers reviewing the Kribi steelworks

Source: Cameroon Steel.

10.7 What the decision criteria mean for the route choice

The decision criteria reinforce the conclusion of this paper. The electric route allows the project’s first commitment to rest on evidence that can be obtained now, about the grid, the iron units, the equipment and the product, while the evidence for domestic ironmaking (ore, pellets, gas) is still being built. No other route allows the same separation. That is why an electric arc furnace, fed first with scrap and imported DRI or HBI and later with direct-reduced iron from concentrated Cameroonian ore, offers the best balance of capital intensity, flexibility, emissions and speed for a new Central African producer.

10.8 What would change the conclusion

A recommendation is only as strong as the conditions under which it holds. Four developments would change the balance described in this paper, and decision-makers should watch for them.

A much larger market with a coal supply chain would reopen the case for a blast furnace. If regional demand for long and flat products grew to several million tonnes a year and a secure source of coking coal and port capacity for it were developed, an integrated works could become economic, although its carbon intensity would weigh more heavily each year as carbon border measures tighten [S53, S55].

A prolonged shortage of traded iron units would slow the pathway. If HBI and scrap became scarce or very expensive before domestic DRI was ready, Phase 1 would run below capacity or with a lower DRI share, and the case for bringing the direct-reduction gate forward would strengthen, subject to the same evidence on ore and gas.

No long-term gas would change the form of domestic ironmaking rather than the route. Without a gas contract, a direct-reduction module could only run on hydrogen, which would have to wait for new low-carbon generation (Chapter 4).

A grid connection that cannot carry an arc furnace would require captive or dedicated generation and a larger compensator, raising costs but not changing the steelmaking technology.

None of these developments is the central case on the evidence available in October 2026. Each would be visible early, and the gate structure allows the plan to respond without stranding the investments already made.