World Steel Industry Trends
Steelmaking processes and technology
Steel technology is often characterised as evolution rather than revolution. The main processes of crude steel production have narrowed over many years and are now predominantly EAF steelmaking based on scrap and BOF steelmaking based on molten pig iron. Changes to these core processes remain largely incremental, with steady improvements in efficiency brought about by advances in equipment design and higher quality electrodes, refractories and other consumables.
However, recent decades have witnessed several breakthrough technologies that genuinely skip process steps—representing genuine revolutionary steps forward rather than mere evolution. Most notably, MIDA technology for long products and thin slab casting for flat products have fundamentally altered production economics by eliminating entire process stages.
Revolutionary Technology: MIDA Eliminates Billet Reheating
The Danieli MIDA (MicroMill Integrated Direct Automation) process represents a genuine step-change in long products technology. By enabling endless casting and direct rolling of products such as rebar, MIDA completely eliminates the billet reheating stage - a process step that traditionally consumed significant energy and capital investment.
This technology combines continuous casting with immediate rolling in a compact, highly automated facility. The energy savings from eliminating reheating furnaces are substantial, whilst capital costs are dramatically reduced compared to conventional routes. Tata Steel's MIDA mill commissioned in Ludhiana, Punjab in 2024 demonstrates the commercial viability of this approach. For further information on MIDA technology, see our technology developments page.
Thin Slab Casting: The Flat Products Equivalent
In flat products, thin slab casting technology achieves similar step-change benefits. Processes such as CSP (Compact Strip Production) from SMS Group and Arvedi ESP (Endless Strip Production) cast steel at significantly reduced thickness—typically 50-70mm versus 200-250mm for conventional slabs.
This breakthrough eliminates or dramatically reduces the hot rolling stage, producing hot rolled coil in as little as 5 minutes from liquid steel. The technology reduces capital costs by 30-40% compared to conventional integrated routes, whilst delivering comparable product quality for many applications. Like MIDA, thin slab casting proves that revolutionary rather than evolutionary technology change remains possible in steelmaking.
Electric Arc Furnace Technology Advances
EAF steelmaking has witnessed remarkable efficiency improvements over recent decades. Between 1970 and 2000, a series of technological breakthroughs transformed EAF performance metrics across all operational parameters, with continued progress since 2000.
Key innovations including secondary metallurgy, water-cooled panels, oxygen lancing, foaming slag practices, ladle furnaces and sophisticated lance manipulation systems have delivered dramatic reductions in tap-to-tap times, electrode consumption and electricity usage per tonne of liquid steel. Modern EAFs now achieve energy consumption below 350 kWh/tonne - less than half the levels typical in 1970.
These improvements have fundamentally changed the economics and capabilities of electric steelmaking. Electrode and refractory consumption have fallen by 60-70% since 1970, whilst productivity has more than doubled. For detailed discussion of EAF technology evolution, see our knowledge base article on EAF developments.
Ironmaking and raw material developments
Changes to the required quality of steel and the situation of scrap supply have influenced the development of ironmaking technology. Falling scrap quality means that electric steelmakers producing high quality carbon steel (particularly flat products) need to add more primary iron. Rising prices of coking coal and the environmental challenges of coke production have stimulated efforts to develop primary iron production without coke.
DRI has continued to grow and maintains strong prospects in countries with low-cost natural gas. Coal-based ironmaking processes such as Corex, based on iron ore lump or pellets, have made only slow progress. Other ironmaking processes based on coal and iron ore fines continue to be researched and promoted, but have made limited impact at a global scale. These alternative ironmaking processes now appear practical only in specific local circumstances (local availability of fine iron ore and non-coking coal, opportunities to use by-product gas elsewhere in the steel plant, shortage of local scrap).
Casting and rolling technology
Continuous casting has now become virtually universal and there is only scope for further installation of this technology at old plants in the CIS and China. Beyond the revolutionary thin slab and MIDA technologies discussed above, there is limited major change in prospect for conventional continuous casting of slabs, blooms or billets.
Direct strip casting (producing HRC direct from molten steel) has been researched for over 30 years. Whilst it has not proven commercially attractive at large scale, it remains a possibility to reduce costs of flat products in the long term. This process may initially be more favourable for production of stainless steel than for large-scale carbon steel plants.
Other improvements to steel rolling technology continue to be incremental and do not seem likely to transform the industry fundamentally in the near term. New plants therefore continue to install proven technology and achieve relatively quick construction and start-up of production.
Energy
For the integrated process of steel production, the main source of energy is coking coal, which is covered under raw materials above. Coking coal produces by-product energy gases that are used elsewhere in the plant instead of purchased natural gas or oil. Rolling mills and coating processes use electricity. This can also be generated at an integrated steel plant from by-product energy gases (coke-oven and blast furnace gas) as well as from turbines driven by the blast of air (top gas) from the blast furnace. Large steel plants will therefore normally seek to install gas recovery and power generation equipment to minimise their external purchases of energy.
Gas is the major fuel for production of DRI, where it is broken down ('reformed') into its constituent elements to provide carbon monoxide to reduce (remove oxygen from) the iron ore. The leading processes of this type are Midrex and HYL. This process is economic only where the price of gas is relatively low, such as in countries of the Middle East.
Non-coking coal is also used directly as the reductant in the production of DRI by an alternative process, widely used in India. This coal-based process (SL/RN and similar processes), widely used in India, has a smaller scale than gas-based processes and suffers from relatively low-quality product because of contaminants from the coal.
Electric steel plants and independent rolling mills are significant consumers of electricity. In some cases an EAF plant generates its own electricity from natural gas. This is normally at electric steel plants associated with DRI plants, where natural gas is a major input to the ironmaking process.
Generally electric steel plants purchase electricity from a utility, so the price and reliability of electricity supply is a major location factor. Unreliable electricity supply, such as in India or in some parts of Africa, can lead steelmakers to install their own coal-fired electricity generation, but the scale of such generation can be uneconomically small.
Alternatively in those countries it leads to very small electric furnaces (induction furnaces) which do not make a large, sudden demand on the local electricity supply, but are inefficient in scale. Consumption of electricity in the steel industry is far lower (less than one-tenth) per tonne of product than in truly energy-intensive metal industries such as aluminium, magnesium or titanium.