India Steel Use Seen Hitting 192 Million Tonnes by 2030

It also sees an opportunity for Indian producers to close the gap between domestic demand and supply of higher-value steel. “India continues to import some advanced and application-specific grades even as exports remain concentrated in lower-margin products. The specialty steel Production-Linked Incentive scheme is helping bridge this gap, with PLI 1.0–1.2 representing more than Rs 55,000 crore in committed investment,” the findings showed.

The product story is no longer only about volume but about fit-for-purpose output, the report said. It was launched during the Global Commodity Conclave in Mumbai last week. Indian mills are increasingly targeting products for sectors such as renewables, electric vehicles and capital goods, creating scope to raise the value generated from rising steel demand.

India’s growth will also need to be matched by efforts to lower the carbon intensity of steelmaking. The report puts the sector’s emissions intensity at 2.55 tonnes of carbon dioxide per tonne of crude steel, compared with roughly 1.4 tonnes in the United States and about 1.9 tonnes in the European Union.

The share of blast furnace-based production is projected to rise from 42 per cent to 56 per cent by 2030. Measures being pursued to reduce emissions include greater use of renewable energy, improved energy efficiency, higher scrap utilisation, green hydrogen and carbon capture.

The outlook links sustained demand growth with a parallel push toward specialty grades and lower emissions as India scales up steel use through the rest of the decade.