DRI & Pelletizing Plant Suppliers in Nigeria (2026)

A Nigerian steel buyer looking for a DRI and pelletizing plant has two real paths: a new gas-based module from a process licensor, or a used or relocated plant lifted from a site that has shut down. Both can work in Nigeria. Which one fits depends on your iron-ore feed, your gas contract, and how much rebuild risk you can carry. This guide walks through the choice the way a procurement team actually faces it.

Why Nigeria is buying DRI now, not later

Nigeria runs almost all of its current steel on scrap-fed electric arc furnaces. The country produces roughly 1.2 million tonnes against demand near 10 million tonnes, a gap covered by imports. Scrap remelting cannot scale to close that gap, because clean scrap is finite and increasingly contested. The route that does scale is iron ore to direct reduced iron (DRI) to steel. That is why the buyer set in this segment is moving from talk to spec.

Two buyers anchor the demand. African Industries Group runs what its own site calls a “fully integrated iron ore mining and steel processing plant in Kaduna state, the first of its kind in Nigeria,” and reports more than $600 million invested and 5 million-plus tonnes per annum of iron-ore mining capacity, per African Industries Group. It beneficiates and pelletizes ore on site, then feeds its own DRI. Premium Steel & Mines at Ovwian-Aladja, the former Delta Steel complex, runs a combined DRI and EAF route and is working toward full commercial restart. At a May 2025 site visit, the Minister of Steel Development said the revitalization is “expected to create over 5,000 direct and 10,000 indirect jobs,” while the company appealed for a reliable supply of locally sourced iron ore, per the Federal Ministry of Steel Development.

Around those two sit the integrated-steel project sponsors tied to the Itakpe iron ore body in Kogi, the long-running Ajaokuta revival talks, and the national target of 10 million tonnes by 2030. Every one of those needs a reduction module and, in most cases, a pelletizing circuit to turn local ore into furnace-ready feed. That is the RFQ.

What you are actually buying: the module and the pellet plant

A gas-based DRI plant is not one machine. The licensed processes, MIDREX and Energiron/HYL, both run a shaft furnace fed by reducing gas that a reformer makes from natural gas. MIDREX describes its own design as “a shaft furnace process specifically designed to convert iron oxides in pellets or lump ore into DRI or HBI using natural gas or hydrogen,” and the plant scope explicitly includes the reformer that produces reducing gas from natural gas, per Primetals Technologies. So the DRI scope you quote against is the shaft furnace, the reformer, the gas-handling and recycling loop, material handling, and the DRI cooling or hot-transport system.

The pelletizing plant is a separate capex line, and it matters more in Nigeria than in scrap markets. DRI shaft furnaces want a clean, high-iron pellet. MIDREX is blunt about the spec: “the preferred feed for a DR plant has an iron content of 67% or greater,” above the 65%-or-lower blast-furnace grade, per Midrex Technologies. DR-grade pellet supply on the seaborne market is structurally tight, and CRU expects high-grade ore “to be in relatively short supply if all the DRI projects in the pipeline proceed,” per CRU Group. Translation for a Nigerian buyer: if your project relies on local Itakpe or Kaduna ore, the beneficiation and pelletizing line is what turns mediocre ore into something the reduction module will accept. Quote them as one integrated package or you risk a furnace starved of feed it can use.

Module sizing is the other early decision. Single MIDREX modules run from a few hundred thousand tonnes up to the 2-million-tonne range; the Corpus Christi plant is “the largest single-module HBI production facility in the world, producing 2 million metric tons annually,” per Primetals Technologies. For a first Nigerian project sized to feed one or two EAFs, a sub-million-tonne module is the realistic starting point, with room to add a second line later.

New module versus a relocated or used plant

This is the pattern-D decision, and it is where most of the money and risk sit.

A new licensed module gives you a current process guarantee, a performance warranty, a clean spare-parts chain, and an OEM on the hook for ramp-up. The trade-off is lead time and a higher up-front number. For a buyer with secured gas and patient financing, new is the cleaner path.

A used or relocated plant is a genuine option in this technology, not a workaround. DRI modules have been dismantled and moved before: several gas-based plants built in one region during the 1990s were later deconstructed and relocated to sites with abundant, cheaper natural gas after local economics turned against them. The reduction shaft, the reformer, and much of the gas loop are heavy, long-life assets. A relocated module can cut both capex and lead time if the donor plant is sound. The catch is that the savings are real only if the condition is real.

The honest framing for a Nigerian buyer: a relocated module makes sense when the donor plant was idled for commercial reasons, not destroyed by a process failure, and when the seller will let you inspect before you commit. It rarely makes sense to buy a “complete plant” sight unseen on the promise of a refurbishment that happens after the wire transfer. The deals that go wrong are the ones where the buyer paid for a plant and received a yard of corroded steel with no engineering package, no reformer catalyst history, and no refractory records.

A useful reference point on durability: MIDREX plants worldwide produced 76.284 million tonnes of DRI in 2024 and have made more than 1.475 billion tonnes cumulatively, with the process holding roughly 80% of shaft-furnace DRI output, per Midrex Technologies. These are long-running assets when maintained, which is exactly why a well-kept used module is worth considering and a neglected one is worth walking away from.

The Nigeria gas reality you must price in

No DRI decision in Nigeria is real until the gas is real. A gas-based module lives or dies on a firm, affordable, long-tenor gas supply, because the reformer is the heart of the plant.

The resource is not the problem. Nigeria’s proven natural gas reserves reached 210.54 trillion cubic feet as of 1 January 2025, per the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Commission (NUPRC). The federal “Decade of Gas” framework prioritizes domestic gas for power and industrial feedstock, and northern industrial gas access improves as the Ajaokuta-Kaduna-Kano pipeline comes into service. For a buyer in Kaduna or the south, pipeline gas is a credible feed.

The bottleneck is contracting, not geology. The MIDREX summary noted that “the two modules in Nigeria did not operate in 2024,” per Midrex Technologies. Idle DRI capacity in a country sitting on Africa’s largest gas reserves is a contracting and feedstock story, not a technology story. So before you sign for any module, new or used, the buyer-side homework is the same: a bankable gas-supply agreement at a price that keeps DRI competitive, a pellet plan that handles your actual ore grade, and a delivery point that the pipeline or a virtual-pipeline LNG supply can actually reach.

This is also why the new-versus-used choice often resolves itself. If your gas position is firm and long-tenor, a new module is financeable. If your gas is interruptible or short-dated, the lower sunk cost of a sound relocated module hedges the risk that the plant runs at low utilization in its early years.

A condition checklist for a used or relocated DRI plant

If you are evaluating a used or relocated module, inspect against this list before any deposit. Treat a refusal to allow inspection as a red flag, not a negotiation tactic.

• Reduction shaft furnace. Shell integrity, refractory age and rebuild history, burden distribution hardware, and any record of breakouts or hot spots.
• Reformer. Tube condition, catalyst replacement history, and burner integrity. The reformer is the most expensive item to rebuild wrong.
• Process gas loop. Compressors, heat exchangers, the CO2 removal or scrubbing system, and seal-gas systems. Confirm what is included and what has been stripped.
• Material handling and DRI discharge. Briquetting (for HBI), cooling, and the conveying chain. Relocations often lose the auxiliaries.
• Automation and electrical. Level-1 and level-2 control systems are frequently obsolete on older modules and are a common hidden cost. Confirm whether you are buying a control upgrade with the plant.
• Engineering and documentation. P&IDs, the original process guarantee, maintenance logs, and a dismantling plan that protects the high-value items. No documentation, no deal.
• Licensor position. Confirm whether the process licensor will re-warrant or support the relocated plant. A module the licensor will not touch is harder to finance and harder to run.

The supplier you want for a used-plant deal is one that sells the engineering and field-rebuild package alongside the iron, not a broker offering a plant on a spreadsheet.

How these deals get paid

DRI and pelletizing capex in Nigeria is hard-currency capital equipment, and the payment structure tracks the buyer type. Private integrated players like African Industries Group buy major packages directly and fund them through letters of credit from Tier-1 Nigerian banks, usually quoted in USD or EUR with international confirmation from a bank in London, Frankfurt, or Dubai. Brownfield restarts blend an LC with vendor financing or an export-credit-agency tranche from the supplier’s home market, which spreads payment across the asset life and strengthens a bid. Larger integrated-steel project sponsors run on their own project-finance perimeter, where sub-package suppliers are paid back-to-back through the lead contractor’s procurement chain. The full mechanics of FX, confirmed LCs, and ECA cover for Nigerian steel deals sit in our Nigeria steel and metal fabrication guide, and the country-wide procurement architecture is in the Nigeria industrial and procurement landscape.

Conventional channels that are losing steam

Selling a DRI or pelletizing plant into Nigeria the old way still works in patches, but the math has tightened for a capital line this specialized.

Trade fairs. Events like the West Africa Industrialisation, Manufacturing & Trade exhibition and the Nigeria Manufacturing & Equipment expo gather genuine buyers, but for a heavy-ironmaking OEM a single stand with booth, freight, hospitality, and senior-engineer time lands at $20,000 to $80,000, and the per-qualified-lead cost realistically sits at $300 to $900 or more. There are perhaps a handful of real DRI buyers in the country, and they are not walking a general manufacturing floor looking for a reduction module.

Field sales representatives. A senior expat rep posted to Lagos, fully loaded with housing, schooling, hardship allowance, and security, runs $300,000 to $500,000 a year. A strong Nigerian sales engineer with real metallurgy and direct-reduction depth runs $80,000 to $150,000. Either way, one rep covers one or two accounts, and per-qualified-lead cost lands in the $500 to $1,200-plus band. For a buyer set this small and this technical, a rep is an expensive way to stay in front of five names.

Distributor and trading-house lock-in. A reduction module is not distributor merchandise. Large integrated buyers want the process licensor and the OEM engineering team directly, with a local agent handling after-sales and customs, not a trading-house markup on a multi-million-dollar plant. The distributor route adds cost without adding the engineering credibility these buyers need.

Embassy trade missions and print trade press open doors at the executive level but produce introductions, not purchase orders. None of these channels alone keeps you in front of African Industries Group in Kaduna, Premium Steel in Delta, the Itakpe-linked project sponsors, and the Ajaokuta program at the same time, which is exactly what wins an RFQ in a market where the spec is shaped before the tender drops.

Where papaverAI fits

The structural gap in selling DRI and pelletizing plants into Nigeria is parallel coverage of a tiny, high-value buyer set. There are only a handful of credible counterparties, and missing the moment one of them moves from study to spec costs you the whole project. papaverAI runs an outbound engine that maps every relevant Nigerian buyer in this segment, identifies the procurement, engineering, and project leads at each, and keeps you in front of them with technically grounded outreach built on real context: their ore grade, their gas position, their restart status.

The cost per qualified lead lands at $150 to $300, against $300 to $900-plus from a trade fair or $500 to $1,200-plus from a field rep. More importantly, the conventional channels scale linearly while the engine compounds: the first five buyers and the next fifty cost roughly the same to run, and the marginal cost of staying in front of one more contact is close to zero.

If you supply DRI modules, reformers, pelletizing circuits, or beneficiation lines, send your spec, drawings, and target tonnage through our contact page and we will route it to the right Nigerian buyers. For procurement enquiries you can reach the team directly at burak@papaverai.com. To see how the engine works end to end, read how it works.

FAQ

Who buys DRI and pelletizing plants in Nigeria? The two anchor buyers are African Industries Group, which runs a fully integrated iron-ore-to-DRI plant in Kaduna with more than $600 million invested and over 5 million tonnes per annum of mining capacity, and Premium Steel & Mines at Ovwian-Aladja, restarting a DRI-EAF route. Integrated-steel project sponsors tied to the Itakpe iron ore body and the Ajaokuta revival round out the set.

Should a Nigerian buyer choose a new or a used DRI module? A new licensed module gives a current process guarantee, a warranty, and a clean parts chain, which suits buyers with firm gas and patient financing. A sound relocated or used module cuts capex and lead time and hedges gas-supply uncertainty, but only if you can inspect the shaft, reformer, and gas loop before committing and the donor plant was idled for commercial, not process, reasons.

Does Nigeria have enough gas to run gas-based DRI? Nigeria’s proven gas reserves reached 210.54 trillion cubic feet as of January 2025, among the largest in the world, per NUPRC. The resource is ample. The real constraint is securing a firm, affordable, long-tenor gas-supply contract and pipeline access to your site, which is why two existing Nigerian DRI modules sat idle in 2024.

What iron ore quality does a DRI plant need? DRI shaft furnaces prefer pellets with an iron content of 67% or greater, above blast-furnace grade, with low silica and alumina. DR-grade pellet supply is globally tight, so projects relying on local Itakpe or Kaduna ore should quote the beneficiation and pelletizing line together with the reduction module rather than assuming bought-in pellets.

What should I inspect before buying a used DRI plant? Check the reduction shaft shell and refractory history, the reformer tubes and catalyst record, the process gas compressors and CO2 removal system, the material handling and DRI discharge chain, and the automation, which is often obsolete on older modules. Demand full engineering documentation and confirm whether the process licensor will support the relocated plant. No documentation or no inspection access means no deal.

Where to go next

This equipment guide sits under the Nigeria steel and metal fabrication guide, which maps the full buyer set, EPC structures, and tender entry points, and under the broader Nigeria industrial and procurement landscape for FX, local content, and federal procurement. If you build reduction modules, reformers, or pelletizing and beneficiation lines, contact us for a procurement-side conversation at a cost per qualified lead of $150 to $300, well below the trade-fair and field-rep math above.