The global iron-ore market experienced a decisive turning point in 2025, with the sector facing oversupply, weakened demand and deep structural change. Producers worldwide are reassessing strategies as the market becomes highly sensitive to policy signals, while risks such as China’s weak property sector, escalating trade disputes and a faster shift to scrap-based steelmaking continue to weigh heavily on outlooks.

Amid these global shifts, South Africa’s iron-ore sector, which otherwise benefits from high-grade deposits, remains constrained by long-standing logistics challenges. Although the country is the seventh-largest iron-ore producer globally, accounting for 3% of world supply, exports continue to be limited by rail inefficiencies and equipment breakdowns. In 2024, 61.20-million tonnes of iron-ore were exported, yet this remained below the installed capacity of the Sishen–Saldanha corridor, with at least eight-million tonnes of finished ore stockpiled awaiting export.

South Africa also faces new external pressures. The US imposed a 30% tariff on most South African exports, with iron-ore among the affected commodities, raising concerns for an industry already impacted on by two decades of declining domestic steel output.

Long-term global demand will strengthen for high-grade ore linked to decarbonisation technologies, but South Africa’s competitiveness will increasingly to depend heavily on restoring reliable rail and port performance.

Creamer Media’s ‘Iron-Ore 2025: Changing Outlook’ report focuses on these issues and others facing the sector, including supply dynamics, demand trends and the pricing environment affecting South Africa and the world’s major iron-ore producers.

This report is a summary of information published in Engineering News and Mining Weekly, as well as of information available in the public domain over the past 12 months. The report does not purport to provide analysis of market trends.
 

The information in this report is correct as of October 27, 2025.