The OECD has released its annual Steel Market Outlook for 2025, offering a comprehensive and sobering analysis of the global steel industry’s current dynamics and mid-term trends.
The report highlights persistent structural challenges that continue to weigh heavily on the sector, including the return of overcapacity, a slowdown in global demand, intensifying trade tensions, and mounting competitive distortions driven by non-market practices.
OECD forecasts a 6.7% increase in global steelmaking capacity (165 million tonnes) between 2025 and 2027 — with Asia (particularly China and India) accounting for nearly 60% of the expansion. At the same time, global demand is expected to grow only 0.7% annually, with a decline in China, stability in the OECD area, and stronger growth only in selected emerging regions such as ASEAN and MENA.
As a result, capacity utilisation rates could fall again, reviving the conditions of oversupply that led to previous price collapses and financial pressure on even the most efficient producers.
The report reaffirms that non-market policies and subsidies continue to distort the playing field, especially in China, where government support to steelmakers is ten times higher (relative to revenues) than in OECD economies. This support has enabled a surge in Chinese exports, now reaching 118 million tonnes, triggering a wave of trade defence measures.
In 2024 alone, 81 antidumping investigations were launched globally — nearly five times more than the previous year — mostly targeting Asian exporters. The report warns of growing circumvention practices, where products are rerouted or modified to bypass trade barriers.
The Outlook also warns that overcapacity is undermining the steel sector’s ability to invest in decarbonisation technologies. More than 40% of the new capacity expected by 2027 will be installed using the traditional, high-emissions BF/BOF route. While many companies are exploring low-carbon alternatives (such as hydrogen-based DRI or carbon capture), unequal access to renewable energy and high-grade iron ores could reshape future production and trade flows.
The OECD stresses that international cooperation — both among governments and within the industry — is essential to restore market balance, improve transparency, and support the green transition in a competitive and sustainable manner.
