The World Steel Association has updated its forecast for global steel consumption, anticipating total 2026 demand will be 1.72 billion metric tons, and then rise 1.7% to 1.75 billion metric tons in 2027. The trade association issues semi-annual Short Range Outlook reports for steel demand, in addition to monthly summaries of global steel output.

For reference, though the forecast report studies steel demand, through eight months of 2026 global steel production was 1,225.2 million metric tons, or essentially unchanged (-0.7%) from January-August 2025.

In the current SRO, the tonnage forecast for the current year is the same that World Steel put forth in its April 2026 Short Range Outlook, though the figure now projected for 2027 is about 10 million metric tons lower than in the earlier report.

“The trajectory we set out in April holds,” explained Alfonso Hidalgo de Calcerrada, chairman of the worldsteel Economics Committee, “but the anticipated recovery is proving slower and more gradual than we had expected. Global steel demand is now forecast to be flat in 2026 rather than to grow modestly, and to grow by 1.7% in 2027 rather than 2.2%.”

Hidalgo de Calcerrada explained that the current SRO’s revision results from an expected -2.0% decline in the forecast for Chinese steel demand. “The property investment downturn has not decelerated as we had anticipated,” he commented, referring to the April forecast. “Infrastructure investment, which we had expected to provide support this year, has instead remained in negative territory. Steel demand from manufacturing has continued to grow on the back of strong exports, but not by enough to offset the weaker than expected performance of real estate and infrastructure.”

The role of China in the global steel market is critical, because that nation’s steelmakers routinely produce more than half of all the steel produced worldwide, much of it for export. Through August, China’s 651,900 million metric tons of output are nearly 55.0% of all the steel produced worldwide year-to-date.

The SRO forecast now projects steel demand outside China to rise by 1.5% for 2026 and then another 4.0% in 2027. “The recovery we described in April is therefore not weaker;” according to Hidalgo de Calcerrada. “Its momentum is being masked by the scale of China’s structural contraction and compounded by energy-market disruptions stemming from ongoing instability in the Middle East.”

Other regional economies - including India, Japan, South Korea, ASEAN, and the Persian Gulf region - are forecast to show improvement in steel demand for 2026 and 2027. World Steel expects European Union steel consumption to decline just -0.3% in 2026, and then rebound by 3.1% in 2027.

World Steel forecasts 2.0% growth for U.S. steel demand in 2026, supported by infrastructure investments related to energy generation and delivery (data centers, power plants, renewable systems, oil-and-gas exploration and delivery), as well as in selected manufacturing markets.

U.S. steel consumption (“apparent steel use”, meaning domestic production plus imports) is seen rising by 1.5% in 2027.  World Steel forecasts the U.S. economy will continue growing along current trend lines, with steel demand growth expected to remain centered in infrastructure projects and manufacturing sectors.