Australia’s mining giants eye India, SE Asia for growth
Australian iron ore miners have highlighted how rising steel demand in India and Southeast Asia will help offset a sluggish market in top customer China, where they face pressure from state-owned buyers to cut prices.
India, currently the world’s second largest steel producer, plans to double its production to 400 million tonnes by 2035-2036 from the current 168 million tonnes.
Although still a small fraction of China’s almost one billion tonnes of production, the new targets will require large amounts of additional iron ore and metallurgical coal; in the second case India imports almost entirely.
BHP, among the world’s largest met coal producers, expects demand in India to double by 2050, group sales and marketing chief Michiel Hovers told an industry conference in Singapore on Tuesday.
The miner has long said Southeast Asia would be a key growth market.
Rio Tinto chief commercial officer Bold Baatar told the same conference that new steel demand in India and Southeast Asia would offset the recession in China, once the biggest steel consumer, where the real estate crisis is now in its fifth year.
Steel production in China falls to seven-year low in 2025; This has compounded the growing challenge iron ore miners face from state-run buyer China Mineral Resources Group (CMRG), which has used heavy-handed tactics including purchase bans to negotiate better terms for the country’s steel producers.
The situation in China is unlikely to improve this year.
Vice-secretary-general Jinkui Zhao said at the same conference that China’s steel demand will fall again.
Meanwhile, CMRG launched a new pressure campaign against iron ore miner Fortescue last month, following a protracted effort against BHP this year.
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