Iron Importance
Iron is often neglected by investors compared to precious metals (gold, silver, platinum), green metals (copper, lithium, cobalt), or even industrial metals (antimony, tungsten, titanium).
This is in large part because iron is viewed as a boring metal, mostly following global economic cycles and unlikely to have any narrative tied to it. No one expects iron demand to triple in the next decade because of battery demand, solar panel production, an aerospace boom amid a space race, or mounting risks of global conflict.
But this can also be a quality. Approximately 90% of all metal that is refined nowadays is iron.
Iron and steel (made of 97% iron) are absolutely omnipresent in everything we use daily in the modern world:
- Infrastructure: bridges, railroads, harbors.
- Construction: reinforced concrete, beams, roofing, nail & screws, etc.
- Transportation: cars, trains, ships.
- Industrial uses: pipes & pipelines, storage tanks, heavy machinery,
- Defense: warships, tanks, artillery shells, guns, bullets, etc.
- Energy: furnaces, turbines, wind turbine pillars, solar panel frames, etc.
- Healthcare: beds, surgical instruments, etc.
- Consumer goods: kitchen appliances, appliances, fireplaces, etc.
This universality makes iron the ultimate defensive commodity, at least as long as investors focus on low-cost producers.
Demand might fluctuate with boom and bust, and so do spot prices. But it is near impossible to imagine our civilization not consuming hundreds of millions of tons of iron and steel every year.
How Is Iron Made?
Iron oxides can come from minerals like hematite, limonite, magnetite, pyrite, goethite, etc.
Source: FTM Machinery
Luckily, iron is very abundant on Earth (5% of the Earth’s crust by weight) and in the universe at large.
By far, the largest reserves are located in Australia and Brazil, followed by Russia and China.
Source: Metal World Insight
The largest iron-producing countries are Australia, Brazil, and China. It should be noted that Chinese ore tends to be of a lower grade.
Source: Visual Capitalist
Iron To Steel
Pure iron is produced from iron-rich ore, which is turned into purer metal through the process of smelting. However, turning it into a usable form can be a very energy-intensive and time-consuming process.
From the primitive, low-temperature smelter of Antiquity, more advanced furnaces were developed in the Middle Ages and in modern times to produce iron more efficiently at temperatures as high as 1,400° to 1,500° C (2,550° to 2,700° F). This hot, purified iron is often directly sent to the steel plant for steel production, reducing heat loss.
Today, most iron is used in the form of more resistant and often more corrosion-resistant (rust) various specialized forms of steel (especially stainless steel), mixing iron with carbon and a few percentages of other metals like nickel, chromium, manganese, and molybdenum.
Source: Home Depot
Most of the global steel production is located in China, which produces more than 55% of the world’s total steel production, followed by India (7% of total steel production).
Source: GMK Center
In general, high-quality ores with large concentrations of iron are preferable as they require less heat and effort to process into usable metal. Higher quality ores also allow for lower mining costs, shielding iron miners from the risks of a temporary downturn in prices, turning their margins negative.
What Determines Iron Price?
Like most commodities, iron prices are determined by the balance between supply and demand, with very little specialization or even less brand power possible, making most producers price-takers.
So the two determining factors are changes in demand, and shortage or excess supply of mined iron.
Iron Demand
Demand is in large part driven by the construction & infrastructure, consuming half of the global demand for steel. The next largest demand driver is the production of heavy machinery and automobiles. Together, these 3 sectors combined consume more than 4/5th of the global steel demand.
Source: Statista
In the past 3-4 decades, the massive demand for iron & steel coming from China has been the dominant story of the industry. The country has built in 1-2 generations a modern economy, resulting in extensive world-class infrastructures:
- 45,000 kilometers of high-speed railroads.
- 1 million road bridges.
- 34 major ports and more than 2000 minor ports.
- 92 TW of power generation capacity.
China also experienced a continuous construction & real estate boom, which came to an end in 2020, with the crisis still ongoing.
This has created persistent fear that the good days for iron prices were over, as the Chinese demand for steel for construction would collapse. This has not been the case, as construction is being replaced by machinery production, and Chinese car exports are exploding.
Source: BHP
In the long term, the development of new infrastructures and urban dwellings in countries with large populations and land surfaces like Indonesia, India, Brazil, and Argentina, as well as the whole of Southeast Asia (2-3 billion people), is likely to keep the demand for iron and steel high and progressively replace the role of China in iron markets.
China’s effort to build global infrastructure through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is also going to contribute to iron consumption in all of Eurasia as well as South America, even if Chinese domestic infrastructure spending slows down.
Source: Alert Conservation
Iron Production
As for most commodities, iron is exposed to regular cycles of under- and over-supply. This is because opening a new large mine or extending an existing mine is a very expensive and complex process that takes years.
Usually, miners tend to undertake such projects only when prices have been high enough for a long time. This way, they can justify it to shareholders, as well as have the cash on hand to be able to finance it.
The issue is that due to the lag between the decision to expand and actual production growth, there is generally a 5-10 years gap.
The moment more production arrives is often during an economic slowdown, or at the same time, the rest of the industry is growing production as well. This can cause a surplus of metal on the market, crashing prices.
Source: Robert Rennie
Carbon Emissions
Iron and steel production is a large consumer of fossil fuels and an equally large emitter of greenhouse gases. Iron and steel production are responsible for as much as 7% of total CO2 emissions, more than emissions of the entire European Union.
Both China and India mostly use coal to produce iron and steel, making their production processes particularly large emitters of CO2.
This could change in the upcoming decade, with a new method developed in China for smelting iron, called flash iron, using hydrogen instead of coal to turn iron ore into pure liquid iron in mere seconds instead of hours.
Still, the central importance of iron in modern industry makes it unlikely to see demand affected by carbon taxes, contrary to other sectors like air travel for example, as all alternative metals would still be much more expensive in any case.
Investing In Iron
While it is technically possible to directly invest in iron futures, a contract reflecting the price of the commodity itself, this is often best reserved for experienced traders rather than for retail investors.
Most investors prefer to invest in iron mining companies, especially ones with a policy of distributing regular dividends to their shareholders.
You can invest in iron-related companies through many brokers, and you can find here, on securities.io, our recommendations for the best brokers in the USA, Canada, Australia, and the UK, as well as many other countries.
If you are not interested in picking specific iron-related companies, you can also look into ETFs like the VanEck Global Mining UCITS ETF (GDID), the iShares MSCI Global Metals & Mining Producers ETF (PICK), or the VanEck Australian Resources ETF (MVR) which will provide a more diversified exposure to capitalize on the mining industry.
Or you can read our dedicated articles about “Tungsten – The Secret High-Tech Metal“, “Investing In Titanium: Stronger than Steel and Denser than Aluminum” and “Chinese Restrictions on Antimony Exports Highlight The Strategic Importance of this Metalloid”, which details similar investment opportunities with strategic metals.
Iron Mining Companies
1.Vale
A decrease in iron smelting costs and carbon emissions could make steel an even more popular material than it is today. When it comes to mining, scale and good geology are everything, with low production costs allowing for higher profits and safety during downturns, which are inevitable in commodity markets.
The Brazilian company Vale is the largest producer of iron and nickel in the world, with a total of 323-330 million tons produced in 2024.
The company is also a producer of metals relevant to the “energy transitions,” like copper. While these metals might be important for the future, for now, iron is the core of the company.
Vale used to be more diversified but re-centered around iron in recent years, having divested $2B worth of various other metal mines and other commodities like palm oil.
Source: Vale
Large Asset Base
Vale qualifies as a medium-sized utility company, operating its own railroad, trains, harbors, and ships to transport ore from extraction to delivery to customers.
It also produces a lot of its own energy, as it operates in remote regions and cannot depend on the Brazilian government to do its job properly, especially considering its massive power requirements.
This was commonly done with hydropower, as the business of mining is not so different from hydropower construction (earthworks, digging rock with explosives, massive amounts of concrete, heavy machinery, mega construction projects, managing rain, etc.).
These infrastructures are complemented by the company’s R&D center, laboratories, hundreds of geologists, training centers, etc.
Getting Over Past Liabilities
One big risk with a massive mining company like Vale is a massive accident causing massive damage.
This is what happened in 2015, with a massive disaster that occurred after a Vale-built dam collapsed. And then a similar incident in 2019.
The flooding caused Brazil’s worst environmental disaster to date, killed 19 people, and affected 39 municipalities across two states, burying them in mining waste products.
Since then, a lot of similar dams have been repaired and/or improved to avoid another catastrophe during the rainy season.
The company has also changed how it operates, having invested $2.5B in four filtration plants to create dry tailing (the crushed rock, dust, and mud) instead of wet tailing requiring dams. So in the future, iron mining activity will no longer create the sort of waste that requires dams at all.
The company is also actively repairing its image, insisting on how its mining activity, combined with a large natural reserve financed by the company, is a major contributor to preserving the Brazilian rainforest, others turned into pasturelands in the region.
Source: Vale
Overall, Vale is now getting over its past trouble with ecological disasters and turning into one of Brazil’s most valuable assets and a central supplier of iron to the world, and China in particular, a country with whom Brazil is forging deeper ties through the BRICS commercial network.
2. Rio Tinto
Rio Tinto Group (RIO -0.15%)
Rio Tinto is the world’s second-largest mining company. The largest part of the company’s business is in iron ore. But it is also a very large producer of copper and aluminum, with strong expansion plans for copper production.
Iron
Rio Tinto’s historical business was, and still is, centered around the Pilbara region in West Australia, renowned for its iron ore.
It is now engaging in a project that took more than 10 years to get off the ground, Simandou, in Guinea (Africa). Once complete, Simandou will be Africa’s largest mine and infrastructure project. The Simandou project is a joint venture between the Government of the Republic of Guinea, Rio Tinto, and Chinese Chalco Iron Ore Holdings (CIOH).
Rio Tinto is also looking at ways to reduce its iron carbon emissions, notably with BioIron, a proprietary technology tuned to Pilbara ore, using biomass and microwave to replace coal usage. This could reduce associated carbon emissions by 95%.
Source: Rio Tinto
Copper
Rio Tinto is quickly growing its copper production with the massive expansion of Oyu Tolgoi, the largest mine in Mongolia. The mine is currently ramping up to 500 ktpa (thousands of tons per year), with a target for 1,000 ktpa in the next five years.
Rio Tinto is expected to provide 25% of growth volumes in global copper supply in the next 5 years.
Rio Tinto is also a leader in the innovation of copper extraction through its venture Nuton, whose new technology allows for a much higher rate of copper recovery from mined ore.
Lithium
Rio Tinto is progressively becoming a giant of lithium production. The first step was the acquisition of the Ricon project in Argentina in 2021.
It was followed by the troubled Jadar lithium project in Serbia, which was canceled under strong pressure by local activists, but might restart after all.
However, the big change came with the acquisition of Arcadium Lithium in 2024, the 3rd largest lithium producer in the world, which was the result of the merger of Allken and Livent a year prior.
Source: Arcadium
This puts Rio Tinto at almost the top lithium company in the world in terms of reserves and total capacity.
Source: Rio Tinto
Regarding this acquisition, what has been described as “Rio Tinto’s real prize” is Arcadium’s direct lithium extraction (DLE) technology. Arcadium has been working on DLE since 1996, in combination with evaporation pounds, and recently made significant progress in making it commercially viable as a stand-alone extraction method.
Arcadium also developed LIOVIX, a form of printable lithium foil that could be used to boost battery performances, reduce manufacturing costs, and reduce lithium use.
Source: Arcadium
Aluminum
Rio Tinto has also been a long-time producer of low-carbon aluminum, with hydropower providing the energy to refine bauxite into alumina and then aluminum.
Rio Tinto
Overall, Rio Tinto is a global mining giant, providing investors with solid exposure to the iron market. It is also a green metal titan in the making, with aggressive moves made into copper and lithium.
With technology to reduce iron ore emissions + already very low-emission aluminum production, it is well positioned to handle the emergence of any carbon tax on its products, giving it a potential competitive edge against its smaller competitors.
