- Steel demand from India projected to rise by 300 mnt by 2050
- Asia expected to add 100 mnt of production capacity by 2027
Mysteel Global: Asia will remain the primary engine of global steel demand and production growth over the coming decades, according to Zhong Shaoliang, Deputy Director General of the World Steel Association (WSA) and chief representative of its Beijing office.
Speaking at a sub-forum during Mysteel’s annual conference held in Shanghai last weekend, Zhong noted that since the turn of the century, Asia has accounted for more than 70% of global steel production and consumption. While China has remained the main contributor, India and Southeast Asia are now driving future growth.
Although China’s steel consumption is projected to decline by around 20% as of 2050, steel demand from India and Southeast Asia may increase by approximately 300 and 80-100 million tonnes (mnt), respectively. These regional increments are expected to fully offset reductions in other markets, sustaining overall global steel demand growth over the next 25 years by about 15%, Zhong said.
On the production side, global crude steel output is expected to continue rising, with an additional 165 mnt of capacity forecast to be added between 2025 and 2027. Of this total, nearly 100 mnt will come from Asia, with 68% based on the blast furnace-basic oxygen furnace (BF-BOF) route, mainly driven by planned expansions in India and Southeast Asia, Zhong said, citing forecasts from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
When discussing the steel sector’s low-carbon transition, Zhong noted that despite substantial investments by global steel players in energy efficiency and emissions reduction, steel carbon emissions intensity has remained elevated in recent years.
He added that the WSA has recently incorporated methane emissions into its accounting framework, a move expected to draw greater attention to emissions from upstream mining activities and to impact the steel sector’s low-carbon transition.
Looking ahead, Zhong said that efforts to reduce carbon emissions will play an increasingly important role in determining competitiveness in the global steel industry.
He outlined three main pathways for the transition: in the near term, improving the carbon efficiency of existing steelmaking facilities; in the medium term, maximising steel scrap use to reduce reliance on iron ore and coal; and in the longer term, developing and deploying breakthrough low-carbon steelmaking technologies.
Note: This article has been written in accordance with a content exchange agreement between Mysteel Global and BigMint.
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