The key trends and pressures reshaping global ferrous markets in 2026 and beyond

At the BIR divisional meeting held on June 1, 2026, Shane Mellor, BIR Ferrous Division president, shared the results from sweeping developments reshaping steel flows. Mellor, with U.K.-based Mellor Metals Ltd., stated that the global ferrous markets "remain highly exposed to geopolitical instability, energy disruption, protectionism, freight volatility, and changing trade dynamics." 

However, he also noted that it is becoming increasingly clear that recycled steel is no longer viewed simply as a secondary raw material. "It is the strategic resource at the centre of true green steel," he declared to delegates at the Swedish Exhibition & Congress Centre in Gothenburg.

While the industry must continue adapting to geopolitical uncertainty, trade fragmentation, changing supply chains, and increasing quality demands, recyclers of the future will not simply supply raw material — they will become strategic partners at the very heart of the global steel industry, he insisted. The steel industry of the future, meanwhile, "will not simply depend on recycled steel, it will be increasingly shaped by it". 

Keynote speaker Tom Cheesewright outlines the future of the global ferrous market 

As part of the session, Recycled steel: the strategic driver of the 2050 steel industry?, keynote speaker Tom Cheesewright addressed key pressures and trends shaping tomorrow's ferrous markets. A leading applied futurist who has helped a host of major organisations to respond with agility, he began by acknowledging that market signals are "really confusing" at present. There is also growth in arc furnace production and demand for complex electrical steel, and, on the flip side, global disruption stemming from, for example, conflicts and tariffs as discussed at the 2025 BIR World Recycling Convention in Bangkok. 

Construction was the first of three areas Cheesewright focused on in his presentation. Whereas some countries have seen a rapid drop-off in their populations and are reconstructing old infrastructure rather than building new, there are also nations with rapidly-growing populations that are trying to build infrastructure as quickly as possible, he said. Then there is the particularly interesting group of countries, such as India, which, he said, has identified a need to build more infrastructure but does not want to do so using yesterday's technology.

Turning to the automotive sector, Cheesewright noted that cars are now "outlasting their predicted lifespan by quite some margin", with the result that fewer cars will probably come to market. In volume terms, he expected that automotive will become "a declining source of recycled steels" and that, with more focus on high quality, recycling "is going to get increasingly challenging". At the same time, he did not anticipate a wholesale shift to aluminium.

Moving on to artificial intelligence (AI), Cheesewright noted that this sector is already driving interesting changes in the production of steel. He used the example of ArcelorMittal, which is "applying AI pretty much across the business in a variety of different roles", with one result being that the time taken to bring a new steel formulation to market has been cut to a fifth of the norm. At the same time, the company has optimised recycled steel purchasing and now uses lower-quality material.

AI clearly has an enormous role to play, "and is already having an impact in terms of reducing the supply of recycled steels from manufacturing", the keynote speaker observed. 

Mellor responded to the guest presentation by saying: "As recyclers, we often focus on the immediate challenges in front of us — freight pricing, trade flows, and volatility — but your presentation reminds us that the structural changes underway may ultimately redefine the entire industry over the next 25 years."

Ferrous panel members discuss the global state of recycled steel 

Mellor then introduced a panel discussion to be moderated by George Adams, CEO of SA Recycling in the U.S., and comprising: Cheesewright; Adam Szewczyk, head of Data Management at the World Steel Association; Sanjay Mehta, managing director of MTC Business Private Limited and president of the Material Recycling Association of India; and Denis Reuter, chief operating officer of TSR Group GmbH & Co. KG in Germany. 

AI and other developing technologies dominated their discussions. In India, said Mehta, new technologies are not replacing labour but are being used to increase efficiency and production. This "hybrid" approach is also being adopted in the recycling business, he confirmed.

While efforts have been made to incorporate AI into sorting activities within his company's shredder operations, Reuter observed that AI has been proving most useful in the administrative sphere — for example, "seeing correlations in big data that people really did not see before".

Having heard Adams suggest that robotics will have the biggest impact on labour reduction in the recycling industry, Cheesewright said humanoid android robots that can be dropped straight into an existing working environment without modifications are becoming cheaper. Combined with one or two specialist robots, these could perform "a large percentage of the difficult, challenging and dangerous work", he contended.

Previous BIR President Tom Bird wondered whether AI could bridge the subjectivity gap between what is quality and what is lower-quality material, ultimately enabling the consumption of much more low-quality recycled steel. "I think that's definitely coming," commented Adams. 

According to Szewczyk, several future trends — including an anticipated increase in car sharing — will create challenges for the steel industry, such as a related reduction in steel demand. However, he perceived that there would be opportunities to be grasped too.

Ferrous metals in numbers

Divisional Statistics Advisor Rolf Willeke reviewed the main findings of the 17th edition of World Steel Recycling in Figures, which covers a five-year period from 2021 to 2025.  

His report began by noting last year's 1.9 percent reduction in global crude steel production to around 1.850 billion tonnes. According to worldsteel, 69.4 percent of the total was produced in oxygen furnaces and 30.3 percent in electric furnaces. There was a decrease in oxygen production but a small increase in electric steel production.

An important indicator for the green transition is global direct reduced iron output, which grew a further 4.9 percent last year to around 153 million tonnes. The leading producer was once again India with an increase of 7.4 percent to around 58.9 million tonnes.

Recycled steel use increases globally 

Total recycled steel usage in key countries and regions was 4.5 percent higher last year at 480 million tonnes in spite of a crude steel production drop of 2.5 percent. China retained its position as the world´s biggest recycled steel user with a consumption increase of 8.3 percent to 227 million tonnes despite the country's crude steel production decrease of 4.4 percent. 

The statistics also reveal another positive result for India, which achieved significant increases in both recycled steel consumption and crude steel production. 

The total figure for recycled steel consumption in our key countries and regions represents around 75 percent of global steel usage for steelmaking.

From BIR worldsteel calculations, each year, some 630 million tonnes of recycled steel are used in global steelmaking, thereby preventing nearly 950 million tonnes of CO2 emissions while saving energy and conserving natural resources.

Recycled steel use in crude steel production was very high for Turkey last year at 86.8 percent, but it was very low for China at 23.6 percent because of its high share of oxygen production and thus lower recycled steel input.

Turkey's recycled steel imports have reduced 

Turkey remained the world`s foremost importer of recycled steel in 2025 despite a decline in the country´s overseas purchases to 18.768 million tonnes. Its principal suppliers were the U.S. (-20.4 percent to 3.608 million tonnes) and the Netherlands (-0.1 percent to 2.764 million tonnes).

India ranked second among global recycled steel importers (-5 percent to 8.040 million tonnes), notably coming from the U.S. (-11.4 percent to 1.320 million tonnes) and the UK (-11 percent to 0.890 million tonnes).

Import volumes increased last year into the EU-27 (+28.8 percent to 4.991 million tonnes), the U.S. (+5.1 percent to 4.662 million tonnes), and Pakistan (+39.8 percent to 3.022 million tonnes), while declines were recorded in Taiwan (-38.1 percent to 1.853 million tonnes) and South Korea (-17.4 percent to 1.782 million tonnes).

EU-27 remains a top exporter of recycled steel 

The EU-27 retained its status as the world´s leading recycled steel exporter in 2025 despite a 2 percent decline to 16.684 million tonnes. Turkey (-0.9 percent to 10.824 million tonnes) and Egypt (+13.4 percent to 1.86 million tonnes) were the primary destinations, with the Netherlands again the EU-27's largest individual external exporter (+4.39 percent to 3.922 million tonnes).

The U.S. remained the second-largest recycled steel exporter globally in 2025 despite an 18.4 percent drop to 11.767 million tonnes. Key customers were Turkey (-14.3 percent to 3.796 million tonnes) and Bangladesh (-28.1 percent to 1.325 million tonnes). 

There were increases last year in recycled steel export volumes from the UK (+4.4 percent to 6.532 million tonnes), Mexico (+34.1 percent to 1.599 million tonnes), Singapore (+33.3 percent to 1.262 million tonnes) and Japan (+17.96 percent to 7.711 million tonnes) while declines were recorded from Canada (-5.4 percent to 4.280 million tonnes) and Hong Kong (-8.7 percent to 1.100 million tonnes).