The global steel industry has been going through major changes since 1970. China has emerged as a major producer and consumer, and India has, to a lesser extent. Consolidation has been rapid in Europe. According to the 2019 International Energy Agency (IEA) report, the iron and steel industry directly contributed 2.6 Gt to global CO2 emissions and accounted for 7% of global energy demand. Singapore is the world's main trading hub for iron, with about 90% of the world's iron ore derivatives traded on their stock exchange.
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In this Dossier
Iron and steel industry in the context of Iron
Iron is a chemical element; it has symbol Fe (from Latin ferrum 'iron') and atomic number 26. It is a metal that belongs to the first transition series and group 8 of the periodic table. It is, by mass, the most common element on Earth, forming much of Earth's outer and inner core. It is the fourth most abundant element in the Earth's crust. In its metallic state it was mainly deposited by meteorites.
Extracting usable metal from iron ores requires kilns or furnaces capable of reaching 1,500 °C (2,730 °F), about 500 °C (900 °F) higher than that required to smelt copper. Humans started to master that process in Eurasia during the 2nd millennium BC and the use of iron tools and weapons began to displace copper alloys – in some regions, only around 1200 BC. That event is considered the transition from the Bronze Age to the Iron Age. In the modern world, iron alloys, such as steel, stainless steel, cast iron and special steels, are by far the most common industrial metals, due to their mechanical properties and low cost. The iron and steel industry is thus very important economically, and iron is the cheapest metal, with a price of a few dollars per kilogram or pound.