The Experts Club analytical center has analyzed the latest trends in the metallurgical sector and the data of the industry’s largest association, the World Steel Association. In 2026, according to the World Steel Association, the global steel market will move from a phase of prolonged adjustment to weak growth: global demand will increase by 0.3%, to 1.724 billion tons, and in 2027 it will accelerate to 1.762 billion tons, or by 2.2%. The association itself believes that the market is passing through the bottom of the 2025–2026 cycle after the structural pressures that had restrained demand since 2022. This means that the global steel industry is gradually emerging from its downturn, but it is doing so very unevenly across regions.
The key conclusion for Ukraine is that the external environment for metallurgy is, on the whole, no longer deteriorating. Worldsteel expects that in 2027 all major developed economies, including the EU, the US, Canada, Japan, and Korea, will already show positive steel demand dynamics. For the EU and the UK, steel consumption is forecast to grow by 1.3% in 2026 and by 3% in 2027, while for the US the figures are 1.7% and 2% respectively. This is important for Ukraine because the European market remains its main external reference point, both in terms of steel product sales and future industrial cooperation.
At the same time, the recovery in global demand will be asymmetric. China, which still determines the global market environment, will continue to reduce steel demand in 2026, though only by 1.5%, and in 2027, according to the association, will move to almost flat dynamics. The main driver of growth among major markets remains India, where demand is expected to increase by 7.4% in 2026 and by 9.2% in 2027. In the developing world excluding China, growth, on the contrary, will slow to 2.5% in 2026 because of the conflict in the Middle East, but will then recover.
For Ukraine, this means that the global market does not promise a sharp price or volume breakthrough, but neither does it create a scenario of a new collapse. In other words, over the next two years the decisive factor for Ukrainian metallurgy will no longer be so much global demand as Ukraine’s own ability to maintain and expand steelmaking, ensure energy supply, logistics, and access to export routes. In this sense, the external market environment is becoming moderately favorable rather than deteriorating, but it is not a saving grace.
Against this background, Ukraine’s own indicator looks restrained. At the end of 2025, the country produced 7.409 million tons of steel, which was 2.2% lower than the 2024 level, and ranked 21st in the world. This figure is significantly lower not only than pre-war levels, but also below the scale that once allowed Ukraine to influence the regional market as one of the major European players.
If the global market is indeed entering a phase of moderate recovery, then the window of opportunity for Ukraine will be determined not so much by whether global demand grows by 0.3% or 2.2%, but by whether the country can restore production volumes at least to a stable double-digit level in millions of tons. Worldsteel’s positive outlook for the EU, growing infrastructure and defense spending in Europe, as well as stabilizing demand in the developed world create the basis for higher consumption of Ukrainian steel in the future. But this opportunity will be realized only if Ukraine restores its own industrial capacity, not automatically.
In a broader sense, the Worldsteel forecast shows that steel is once again becoming an indicator of industrial policy. Where infrastructure investment, railways, defense budgets, and machine-building are growing, demand for metal returns. Ukraine’s post-war recovery strategy should consider metallurgy not as a separate export sector, but as a foundation for construction, machine-building, transport infrastructure, and defense production. Only in this case can even moderate global growth translate into a more tangible internal industrial effect for the country.
The World Steel Association (Worldsteel) brings together steel producers, industry associations, and research institutes from all key steel-producing countries. The association’s members account for around 85% of global steel output.
