East African country, Uganda opens a $200 million Iron Ore Smelting Plant. The company will be producing more than 1.2 million tonnes of metal every year.
The factory named Tembo Steel is located in Iganga; somewhere in the Eastern region of Uganda
The new plant was established to help the East African region in reducing the level with which it relies on materials such as billet and scrap metals for the production of raw materials.
The Chairman of Tembo steel, Sanjay Awasthi, stated that “this is East Africa’s largest integrated steel mill; with forward to backward integration of steel.”
The opening of the plant is said to be at the same time as Uganda has banned its citizen from selling any form of scrap metal. This ban was done in a bid to reduce the high level of destruction of public property; such as CCTV cameras among others. Before the country’s ban, their neighbor, Kenya had already banned the sale of scrap metal as well.
According to reports, the neighboring countries of Rwanda and Tanzania have been the major providers of cast iron to Uganda; but unfortunately, iron ore is becoming limited in these countries.
Hopefully, With the factory in place, there will be an increased volume of the production of iron ore which will eventually lead to its export to other countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, South Sudan, and Rwanda
Uganda Iron Ore deposits
Uganda has confirmed iron ore deposits of over 500 million tonnes. These include and Kisoro districts of southwestern Uganda, magnetite iron ore in Sukulu; Bukusu in Tororo District in eastern Uganda and Hematite iron ore found in Muko in Kabale
Uganda, a country that spends over $360 million in a year on the importation of steel, can now produce about 585,000 tonnes locally of which 210,000 tonnes is liquid steel production.
