We've covered zinc's role in energy, health, and sustainability before, alongside the supply base concentrated in a handful of mega-mines and the production map that has shifted toward Asia since the mid-1990s. The story of 2025 is what changed on the demand side. In November, the U.S. Geological Survey retained zinc on its final 2025 List of Critical Minerals. At the same time, Fastmarkets reported that the global zinc market stayed tight through 2025, with new demand emerging from stationary energy storage. The structural case stopped being theoretical and started showing up as purchase orders.
Galvanising: The Decarbonisation Numbers
About half of all refined zinc goes into galvanising steel. According to the International Zinc Association's Zinc Enables Decarbonization programme, roughly 50 million tonnes of CO₂ are prevented annually for every 1% of global steel rebar that is galvanised. Building one kilometre of road with galvanised rebar avoids around $31 million in lifetime repair costs and roughly 3,000 tonnes of CO₂, while doubling the road's lifetime costs about 1% of initial construction.
China remains the centre of this demand. Fastmarkets notes that Beijing has committed more than $300 billion to grid modernisation over the past four years, with another $80 to $100 billion earmarked for 2025, and that continued urbanisation under the 15th Five-Year Plan will keep requiring galvanised steel.
Cars, EVs, and Die Casting
The IZA projects a 22% increase in zinc demand for automotive steel by 2030, equating to about 140,000 tonnes of additional zinc per year, driven by larger vehicles, EVs, and growth in China and India. The association's die-casting outlook adds a forecast 17% rise by 2035, or roughly 270,000 tonnes more demand.
These IZA forecasts sit against the near-term market picture. Investing News Network reports that the International Lead and Zinc Study Group projects only around 1% growth in global refined zinc demand in 2026, while Morgan Stanley has set a 2026 average price forecast of $2,900 per tonne against a 2025 LME average of $3,218 per tonne.
Zinc Batteries: From Contender to Customer Orders
The lithium-alternative angle is one we've covered before, but 2025 is when it stopped being theoretical. On 31 October 2025, Eos Energy Enterprises announced a 228 MWh order from UK developer Frontier Power, the first conversion under a previously announced 5 GWh framework agreement. The California Energy Commission followed with a $14 million grant to Pacific Steel Group to deploy a zinc-hybrid storage system at the $630 million Mojave Micro Mill, a zero-emission rebar plant. In India, TechCrunch reports that startup Offgrid Energy Labs closed a $15 million Series A in September 2025 to commercialise its ZincGel chemistry, with a 10 MWh UK demonstration facility planned for Q1 2026.
Lithium-ion still dominates grid storage, but zinc batteries have moved from demonstrators to multi-hundred-MWh purchase orders.
Fertiliser and Yields
The IZA's Zinc Nutrient Initiative reports that zinc-micronutrient fertilisers raise yields by 20 to 30%, and that fertiliser applications already account for 400,000 tonnes of annual zinc demand. A 2025 IZA project in Udaipur, India trained more than 200 farmers, with reported wheat yield gains of 30% and maize gains of 20%. India also cut its Goods and Services Tax on zinc fertilisers from 12% to 5% during the year, lowering the cost barrier for adoption.
The Bottom Line: Structural Demand Meets Cyclical Pressure
Zinc's 2025 was two stories in parallel. The IZA's structural case is one of widening application across EVs, infrastructure, grid batteries, and fertiliser, with the USGS critical-mineral classification underlining the strategic stakes. The cyclical case, told through LME prices and ILZSG projections, is one of near-term oversupply and modest 2026 demand growth as new Chinese smelting capacity comes online. The question heading into 2026 is whether structural demand materialises fast enough to absorb the supply currently entering the market.
