By Rick Osborne, CEO Metals NZ
Forging a stronger future: New Zealand steel sector maintains an optimistic outlook for 2026.
As we farewell 2025, New Zealand’s steel sector reflects on a challenging year as a result of rising input costs and weak construction demand. Despite these headwinds, the sector remains optimistic for a better 2026.
In June, New Zealand Steel celebrated 60 years of producing steel at Glenbrook. What started as a bold idea—to make steel from our own iron sands—has helped shape the New Zealand we know today; from the buildings we live and work in to the bridges and roads that connect us.
Fletcher Steel’s Steel Outlook symposium, held in August, heard from a diverse group of speakers. With a focus on lower embodied carbon steel, the symposium ignited cross-sector discussions on specifying for lower embodied carbon steel, innovations in production processes and raw materials, and emerging supply options.
2025 saw growing collaboration between manufacturers, fabricators, researchers, and regulators. Metals NZ is working to ensure policy and research reflect a modern steel industry that values performance, affordability, and sustainability. Partnerships with BRANZ, MBIE, universities, and the wider construction sector are helping to build the required skills, products, and knowledge needed for the future.
In 2026, housing activity is expected to rise, major infrastructure projects are progressing, and the renewable energy transition is gaining momentum – all areas that depend on steel.
The sector is advancing its decarbonisation plans, with a national roadmap under development and due for public launch by mid-2026. New Zealand Steel’s electric arc furnace project is set to be fully operational early 2026, and will reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions by up to a million tonnes. This project will be New Zealand’s largest-ever single-site emissions reduction initiative, and includes the launch of DCRBTM reinforcing and plate steel products, made from 100% scrap and with a low emissions profile.
It will do this by taking advantage of the infinitely recyclable nature of steel by providing the option for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of scrap steel to be repurposed locally.
The sector is expecting increased use of modular steel framework. Both lightweight and exceptionally strong, steel delivers efficiency in design, production, and construction. Somerset’s St John’s village, opened in 2025, makes extensive use of modular steel framework in its construction.
With steel remaining the backbone of New Zealand’s built environment, there is genuine cause for optimism about what lies ahead. We’ve faced challenging cycles before, and each time we’ve emerged stronger. New Zealand’s steel industry is not only adapting to change, it is leading it.
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