Brazilian Metals Exporters: Steel and Aluminum

Brazil’s mills exported 10.98 million tonnes of steel products in 2025, up 14.7% on 2024, and collected US$7.38 billion for it, down 3.3%, according to Instituto Aço Brasil’s December 2025 statistical bulletin. More tonnes, less money. The average export tonne fetched US$672 in 2025 against US$798 in 2024.

The gap is commercial, not technical. Brazilian metallurgy has the capacity, the grades and, on carbon intensity, an argument few competitors can match. What it lacks is a named buyer list for the products that carry a margin, because the channels the sector has used for thirty years were never designed to build one.

What did Brazilian mills actually sell abroad in 2025?

Mostly feedstock. Semi-finished products accounted for 8.68 million of the 10.98 million tonnes exported, and slabs alone for 8.49 million, or 77% of the total. Flat products came to 969,205 tonnes and long products to 1.12 million, together just 19% of export volume. Pig iron shipped separately at 4.06 million tonnes.

Inside that mix, the finished lines moved the wrong way. Long product exports fell 3.3%, rebar 10.8%, and welded tube exports dropped 36.7% to 134,408 tonnes. The categories that grew fastest were slabs, up 19.3%, and heavy plate off a small base. Brazil sold more of what a re-roller consumes and less of what an end user specifies.

Crude steel production itself slipped 1.6% to 33.35 million tonnes. The domestic market did not absorb the difference: import penetration reached 20.8% of apparent steel consumption in 2025 against 18.5% in 2024, and 24% in flats. Instituto Aço Brasil linked that shift to 5,000 lost jobs and R$2.5 billion of canceled investment in its December 2025 review.

Who buys Brazilian metal, and what do they pay for it?

One market takes the majority of the tonnage, and it pays the lowest price per tonne. The United States absorbed 6.43 million tonnes in 2025, 58.5% of steel export volume, at an average of US$590 per tonne. Mercosur customers took 1.15 million tonnes at US$845, a 43% higher realization on the same national industry.

Destination	2025 volume (t)	Share of exports	Average value per tonne
United States	6,426,234	58.5%	US$590
Latin America	2,840,206	25.9%	US$746
European Union	1,157,464	10.5%	US$673
Asia	85,452	0.8%	US$986

The concentration repeats one layer upstream. Brazil exported roughly 431 million tonnes of mineral products worth about US$46 billion in 2025, with iron ore at 63.3% of the total, and 69.2% of that tonnage went to a single destination, according to IBRAM’s mineral sector report. Iron ore closed December 2025 at US$107.19 per tonne, 6.6% below its 2024 average.

Two numbers deserve a second look. Asia took 0.8% of Brazilian steel export volume in 2025 and paid the highest average price on the table, US$986 a tonne. Africa took 0.3%. Neither region turned Brazilian steel away. Both are simply places where very few mills keep a salesperson, a distributor or a quotation history.

Is aluminum a different story?

Different numbers, same structure. Brazilian primary aluminum output rose 8.5% to 1.18 million tonnes in 2025, the highest since 2013, and the sector posted a US$3.3 billion trade surplus on R$168 billion of revenue, per ABAL’s July 2026 results release. Domestic consumption of transformed products slipped 0.5% to 1.883 million tonnes.

Where the metal goes follows the same pattern as steel. On the most recent destination breakdown ABAL publishes, covering 2024, Japan took 30% of aluminum exports, the United States 14% and the Netherlands 11%. Three destinations for over half the volume, weighted toward primary metal and ingot rather than extrusion, sheet or castings.

Meanwhile imported semi-manufactured and manufactured goods grew 5.9% and lifted their share of the Brazilian market from 11.2% to 12%. Demand from machinery and equipment fell 10.5% and construction 3.4%. The transformation segment, the part of the chain that employs people and defends margin, is being squeezed at home while its exports remain a rounding error.

What is the carbon argument nobody is making to buyers?

Brazilian primary aluminum carries about 3 tonnes of CO2 equivalent per tonne against a world average of 13, roughly 3.5 times lower, on ABAL’s greenhouse gas inventory published in June 2026. Sixty percent of the aluminum consumed in Brazil already comes from recycled metal, and the sector cut emissions 27% between 2019 and 2024 against 13% globally.

That matters commercially from 1 January 2026, when the EU’s Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism entered its definitive regime covering iron and steel, aluminum, cement, fertilizers, electricity and hydrogen. Authorized importers now buy and surrender certificates against the embedded emissions of what they bring in.

ABAL executive president Janaina Donas framed the opportunity in the same release, saying in Portuguese that industrial decarbonization “should not be seen only as an environmental challenge, but also as an important opportunity for economic development.”

The catch is procedural. A CBAM certificate is calculated per shipment, per importer, against verified emissions data. Nobody in a commodity trading chain has a reason to walk a German or Polish procurement team through your inventory figures, so the premium a low-carbon Brazilian tonne should command goes uncollected.

Which sales channels is the sector still paying for?

Four, and each of them is built for a business that sells tonnage rather than specifications.

Do the Brazilian metals fairs reach export buyers?

ABM Week runs 8 to 10 September 2026 at Pro Magno in São Paulo, billed as the largest technical and scientific event for metallurgy, materials and mining in Latin America. It earns that billing, and it is an industry congress rather than a buyer venue. Its sponsor list runs ArcelorMittal, Primetals Technologies and SMS Group: peers and equipment vendors, rather than the fabricator in Poznań who needs 4,000 tonnes of coil.

The pipe and valve side is worse on timing. Tubotech is biennial and its fourteenth edition falls on 27 to 29 October 2027 at São Paulo Expo. An export manager relying on it has an eighteen-month gap in the calendar. Across the sector, booth, build, travel and staff time put fairs in the range of US$300 to US$900 per qualified lead, and the leads are whoever walks the aisle.

Why do commodity desks cap what a mill can earn?

Slab and pig iron volume moves through trading houses that own the paperwork, the logistics and the customer. Their share comes off every tonne, every year, and the mill never learns which plant consumed the metal or on what cycle it reorders. When a desk finds cheaper units elsewhere, the volume moves without a phone call.

That is tolerable for undifferentiated slab. It is expensive for low-carbon billet, silicon steel or a specialty alloy, because a commodity desk sells on price and availability and has no mechanism for the technical case that justifies a premium.

What do distributors and field reps cost?

Service centers in Europe and Latin America hold the stock, cut to size and keep the buyer data, adding their margin to the landed cost while the producer stays interchangeable.

Building direct coverage instead means technical salespeople working in Spanish, English, German and Italian across several markets. That lands at US$500 to US$1,200 per qualified lead and gets worse as territories multiply, because every new market adds payroll months before it adds orders.

What changes when the mill owns the buyer relationship?

An outbound engine reverses the direction of travel. Instead of waiting for a fair or renting access from a trader, it identifies the companies that will need Brazilian metal, finds the people who sign for it, and opens the conversation in their language with the documentation their process requires.

For a metals exporter the signals are specific and public. Companies registering as CBAM declarants. Extrusion and stamping plants announcing capacity in Mercosur. Rail, transmission and water projects entering procurement across Latin America. Stainless and coil users in Asia, a region currently taking 0.8% of Brazilian export tonnage at the highest price per tonne on the table.

Channel	Cost per qualified lead	How it behaves as you scale
Metals fairs (ABM Week, Tubotech)	US$300 to US$900+	Linear, and capped by an event calendar
Field sales teams	US$500 to US$1,200+	Worse than linear, payroll before pipeline
Trading houses and desks	Margin share on every tonne	No buyer relationship at any volume
Systematic outbound	US$150 to US$300	Unit cost falls as buyer data accumulates

The compounding is the part that matters over a year. Every campaign cycle sharpens the map of which plants buy which grade, on what qualification timetable, against which standards and emissions thresholds. Month eight reaches better-fit buyers at lower cost than month one, which no booth or plane ticket has ever managed. The mechanics are set out in how the system works.

Where does that leave Brazilian metals exporters?

With a strong product and a thin address book. The 2025 figures show an industry that can move volume, and that moving volume on its own bought it a 15.7% fall in realized price per tonne. The tonnes that earned most went to Mercosur and Asia, the two markets where the sector has the least commercial presence.

The work required is commercial. Brazilian mills and smelters already hold the grades, the certifications and the emissions numbers. What is missing is a channel that puts a named engineer at a Polish fabricator, a Chilean EPC contractor and a Korean stainless plant in front of those numbers in the same quarter.

If you produce steel, aluminum or fabricated metal products in Brazil and want direct lines into export markets your traders will never open, talk to us about the growth engine. Adjacent sectors are covered in our guides to Brazilian ferroalloy exporters and Brazilian aluminum extrusion manufacturers. Sourcing from these manufacturers? Send us your RFQ.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much steel did Brazil export in 2025 and where did it go?

Brazil exported 10.98 million tonnes of steel products in 2025, worth US$7.38 billion, plus 4.06 million tonnes of pig iron. The United States took 58.5% of the volume, Latin America 25.9%, the European Union 10.5%, Asia 0.8% and Africa 0.3%. Semi-finished products, mainly slabs, made up 79% of what shipped.

Why did export revenue fall while volumes rose?

Because the growth came from slabs. Semi-finished exports rose 19.7% while finished long products fell 3.3% and welded tube 36.7%. Slabs sell as feedstock at feedstock prices, so the average realized value per exported tonne dropped from US$798 in 2024 to US$672 in 2025 even as total tonnage climbed 14.7%.

Does CBAM actually help Brazilian steel and aluminum exporters?

It can, but not automatically. The definitive regime started on 1 January 2026 and prices embedded emissions on iron, steel and aluminum imports into the EU. Brazilian primary aluminum averages about 3 tCO2e per tonne against a world average of 13, so EU buyers surrender fewer certificates. The saving only reaches your invoice if verified emissions data reaches the buyer.

How long before a metals outbound program produces orders?

Expect first qualified conversations inside the first month and mill audits or trial orders considerably later. Metals procurement runs on qualification: mill test certificates, sample coils or billets, third-party inspection, then a first commercial tonnage. Standard grades typically clear in three to six months, and specification-driven or CBAM-documented supply can take longer.