How would a species be unable to produce steel?

The antagonist of my story trades steel with a non-human, and non-humanoid, race, in return for a magical substance. They place great value in steel as they cannot manufacture it themselves. That is, they do know how steel production works, yet some aspect of their biology makes it unfeasible for them.

In this setting, steel is produced using wind furnaces as was historically done in Sri Lanka.

How would the production of steel be impossible for a species? Explanations to this would preferrably be biological, rather than magical, and not too alien since this is a mammalian race, designed with evolutionary plausibility in mind.

Clarification: steel production is possible in the environment that they live in (there is iron and carbon, and there are possible heat sources).

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How would a species be unable to produce steel?

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