Katowice, Poland – 30 December 2025

As we close out 2025, the mood in the industry is… well, it’s a bit stressed. December was the lowest daily steel production month we’ve seen in two years. For the whole year, the world made 1.8 billion tons of steel, which is 2% less than 2024. But the real talk in the offices this month isn’t about production—it’s about the “Green Tax” that starts in a few days.

The 1,600-Page Nightmare. The European Union’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM) starts officially on January 1st, 2026. And what did the government do? They waited until the very last week of December to release 1,600 pages of rules on how to calculate the tax. It’s a total disaster for small and medium traders. Importers are sitting there with contracts already signed for 2026, and they have no idea if they are going to owe millions in extra taxes. This “compliance chaos” is going to make the start of next year very slow and very expensive. It’s like being told the rules of a game after you already started playing.

The Yearly Winners and Losers. Now that the 2025 books are closing, we can see the damage:

• India is the absolute winner (+10.4% for the year). They are the new center of the world.

• Germany is the big loser (-8.6%). Their energy-intensive industries are still almost 18% below where they were before the energy crisis started. They are basically shrinking.

• China finally fell below the “1 billion ton” mark. For years, people thought China would grow forever. 2025 proved that theory wrong. They are still huge, but the “golden era” is over.

Manganese Confidence Interestingly, while steel is weak, the manganese guys are feeling very brave. India’s MOIL raised prices by 3% this month. They know their local steel mills have to buy from them because the local industry is booming, so they are flexing their muscles. For the rest of us, it means the “floor” for alloy prices is getting a bit higher, even if the “ceiling” (the demand) is still low. We are ending the year with high costs and low demand—not a great combination for 2026.

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Primeore Trading (Polska) Sp. z o.o. is a trading arm of Primeore Ltd. which is responsible for handling of all international trading and trading-related operations of the group. The company is involved into operations with manganese ore, ferroalloys, coke and coal products worldwide.

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