India Steel Boom Redraws The Raw Material Map

India’s accelerating steel capacity build-out is beginning to reshape international trade in coking coal and metallurgical coke, with overseas supplies becoming increasingly important to the country’s industrial growth. The shift is significant not only for commodity markets but also for the cost, emissions and infrastructure footprint of future steel-led urban expansion.

India’s crude steelmaking capacity reached about 220 million tonnes in FY2025–26 and remains on course towards the 300-million-tonne level by 2030. Steel output has also risen sharply over the past five years. Government data shows finished steel demand continuing to benefit from construction, infrastructure and manufacturing activity. That growth is exposing a major raw-material constraint. India remains heavily dependent on imported coking coal, a key input for blast-furnace steelmaking. Government data shows that roughly 95% of the steel sector’s coking coal requirement is currently met through imports, despite efforts to expand domestic production and coal washing capacity.

Industry projections indicate that imports of coking coal and pulverised coal injection fuel could reach around 120 million tonnes annually by 2030, including about 90 million tonnes of coking coal. That would make India’s steel expansion increasingly sensitive to shipping costs, geopolitical disruptions, mine supply and currency movements. The sourcing map is already changing. Australia remains a major supplier, but Indian buyers are widening procurement towards the United States, Mozambique, Russia and emerging sources such as Mongolia. Recent efforts to test Mongolian coal underline the strategic push to reduce exposure to any single supply corridor, although transport costs and difficult logistics remain obstacles. Metallurgical coke is undergoing a similar shift. India’s imports are expected to reach about 6 million tonnes in 2026, with Indonesia emerging as an important supplier. Competitive pricing and shorter logistics have strengthened its position even as India has introduced trade protection measures for domestic producers.

China’s supply situation adds another layer of uncertainty. Safety restrictions following a fatal mine accident in Shanxi have slowed the recovery of coking coal output, with analysts expecting tightness to persist into 2027. That could keep international prices vulnerable to renewed supply disruptions. For India, the issue extends beyond steel margins. Imported coal and coke influence construction costs, industrial competitiveness, port capacity and the carbon intensity of infrastructure. The government is simultaneously targeting greater domestic coking-coal production and lower emissions from steelmaking. The next phase of India steel expansion will therefore depend not simply on adding furnaces and mills, but on securing resilient raw-material supply while reducing the environmental burden of producing the materials underpinning India’s cities, transport networks and industrial economy.

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India Steel Boom Redraws The Raw Material Map