Against the backdrop of a sluggish global economic recovery and frequent geopolitical events, the steel market is undergoing profound changes in 2024-2025. This transformation is not only reflected in the adjustment of supply and demand relations, but also in profound changes in multiple dimensions such as industrial structure, technological innovation and policy orientation. Facing a complex and volatile environment, the steel market is undergoing an unprecedented restructuring. What changes will occur in the steel market during the period of reconstruction from 2024 to 2025? Here is a brief analysis.

Analysis of Steel Market Trends from 2024 to 2025

From an economic perspective, against the backdrop of a global economic slowdown, the demand in traditional manufacturing and construction sectors will be weak in 2024-2025, while the demand in emerging fields such as new energy and new infrastructure will continue to rise. Coupled with the overall downward pressure on the economy, the upstream and downstream structure of the overall steel market is being restructured. Furthermore, against the backdrop of increasing global economic uncertainties, upstream and downstream enterprises generally adopt conservative strategies, maintaining low inventory levels, which leads to increased market volatility. In addition, under the impetus of the carbon neutrality goal, new technologies such as electric furnace steelmaking and hydrogen metallurgy are accelerating their promotion. Coupled with the continuous deepening of the application of technologies like industrial Internet and big data throughout the entire production process, green and low-carbon transformation and intelligent manufacturing have become the development directions of the industry.

Analysis of the steel market trend after the Lantern Festival in 2025

1. Demand side: Support and drag coexist

Infrastructure investment: In 2025, fiscal policies will continue to exert force, and the scale of ultra-long-term special Treasury bonds and local special bonds will expand, driving the growth rate of infrastructure investment to remain within the range of 5% to 10%, becoming the core support for steel demand. After the Lantern Festival, as projects resume work and funds are in place, the demand for steel used in infrastructure is expected to gradually be released.

The real estate industry: Despite the recovery of the sales end of the real estate sector under policy stimulus, the area of new starts is still in negative growth. The demand for steel in the real estate sector may continue to decline slightly compared with 2024, dragging down the overall demand.

Manufacturing industry: Exports are under pressure from trade frictions (such as tariff policies in Europe and the United States), but the growth rate of domestic manufacturing investment is expected to remain at 5% to 8%. The steel demand in fields such as mechanical and electrical, and automobiles may partially make up for the gap.

In terms of exports, the steel export volume reached 111 million tons in 2024 and is expected to slightly decline to around 100 million tons in 2025. Overseas trade barriers (such as anti-dumping investigations in Southeast Asia and Africa) have imposed constraints on exports.

2. Supply side: Output continues to be reduced, and structural contradictions are prominent

In 2025, the output of crude steel is expected to further decline by 5 to 10 million tons. The overall supply pressure of the industry will be relieved, but the varieties will be significantly differentiated: the supply of building materials such as rebar will decrease, while the supply of plates such as hot-rolled coils and special steels such as structural steel will be locally excessive due to capacity transformation.

The profit margin of steel mills remains at a low level. After the Lantern Festival, the recovery of demand has fallen short of expectations. Some enterprises have voluntarily limited production to stabilize prices.

3. Market Outlook: Short-term Volatility and long-term Transformation Pressure

In the short term (from the second half of February to the first half of March) : The resumption of infrastructure construction has driven a marginal improvement in demand, but the weakness of the real estate and exports has limited the rebound space. Moreover, due to the decline in raw material prices (loose supply of iron ore and coking coal) and the pressure on exports (intensified trade frictions), the steel market is in a "weak recovery" stage after the Lantern Festival, and steel prices may fluctuate weakly within a narrow range. It is recommended to pay attention to the progress of infrastructure project implementation, data on new real estate starts and changes in overseas trade policies.

In the long term, the industry is facing multiple transformation pressures. With the overall contradiction between supply and demand existing, it is expected that steel prices will continue to decline in 2025, but the decline will be significantly narrower than that in 2024. Against the backdrop of an overall steel price drop of around 8% in 2024, it is projected to fall by another 3% in 2025.