Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., a North America-based steel producer, focuses on value-added sheet products, particularly for the automotive industry.
The company is vertically integrated from the mining of iron ore, production of pellets and direct reduced iron, and processing of ferrous scrap through primary steelmaking and downstream finishing, stamping, tooling, and tubing.
The company offers the most comprehensive flat-rolled steel product selection in the industry, along with several complementar...
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., a North America-based steel producer, focuses on value-added sheet products, particularly for the automotive industry.
The company is vertically integrated from the mining of iron ore, production of pellets and direct reduced iron, and processing of ferrous scrap through primary steelmaking and downstream finishing, stamping, tooling, and tubing.
The company offers the most comprehensive flat-rolled steel product selection in the industry, along with several complementary products and services. A sampling of the company’s offerings includes advanced high-strength steel, hot-dipped galvanized, aluminized, galvalume, electrogalvanized, galvanneal, HRC, cold-rolled coil, plate, GOES, NOES, stainless steels, tool and die, stamped components, rail, slab, and cast ingot. Across the quality spectrum and the supply chain, the company’s customers can frequently find the solutions they need from its product selection.
The company is a producer of electrical steels referred to as GOES and NOES in the U.S. Distribution transformers are critical to the maintenance and expansion of America’s electric grid. Transformers are in short supply, and that shortage stifles economic growth across the country.
The company is the first and the only producer of HBI in the Great Lakes region. From the company’s Toledo, Ohio facility, it produces a high-quality, low-cost, and low-carbon intensive HBI product that can be used in the company’s blast furnaces as a productivity enhancer, or in its BOFs and EAFs as a premium scrap alternative. The company uses HBI to stretch its hot metal production, lowering carbon intensity and reliance on coke.
Strategy
The company’s strategies are to maximize its commercial strengths; optimize its fully integrated steelmaking footprint; pursue value-enhancing mergers and acquisitions; explore attractive downstream opportunities; advance the company’s participation in the energy transition; and enhance the company’s environmental sustainability.
Business Operations
The company has a vertically integrated portfolio, which begins at the mining stage and goes all the way through the manufacturing of steel products, including stamping, tooling, and tubing. The company has the unique advantage as a steel producer of being fully or partially self-sufficient with its production of raw materials for steel manufacturing, which includes iron ore pellets, HBI, scrap, and coking coal. It is organized into four operating segments based on the differentiated products – Steelmaking, Tubular, Tooling and Stamping, and European Operations. The company primarily operates through one reportable segment – the Steelmaking segment.
The company’s primary steel producing and finishing facilities are located across Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ontario. It operates eight blast furnaces and five EAFs with the configured capability of producing approximately 23.0 million net tons of raw steel annually. Raw steel is generally cast into slabs and finished based on customer specifications. Finishing is completed on site at the company’s integrated operations or at one of its standalone finishing facilities.
Ferrous raw materials for the production of steel are primarily internally sourced from the company’s iron ore mines in Michigan and Minnesota, its direct reduction plant in Ohio, and its scrap facilities in Michigan, Ohio, Tennessee, Florida, and Ontario. The company also operates a coal mining complex in West Virginia and produces coke from its facilities in Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Ontario.
The company’s Other Businesses primarily include the Tubular and Tooling and Stamping operating segments that provide customer solutions with carbon and stainless steel tubing products, advanced-engineered solutions, tool design and build, hot- and cold-stamped steel components, and complex assemblies.
Products and Markets
As a fully integrated steel enterprise, the company has a comprehensive portfolio of steel solutions. It primarily sells its products to customers in four broad market categories.
The company sells its products principally to customers in North America. As a result of the Stelco Acquisition, it now sells approximately 30-35% of its flat-rolled steel shipments under fixed price contracts. These contracts are typically one year in duration and expire at various times throughout the year.
Automotive Market
The company specializes in manufacturing difficult-to-produce and high-quality steel products with demanding delivery performance and first-class customer technical support. Through the company’s collaborative relationships with automotive producers, it develops breakthrough steel solutions that help its customers meet their product requirements.
The largest end user for the company’s steel products is the automotive industry in North America, which makes light vehicle production a key driver of demand.
The company benefits from intentionally targeting larger vehicle platforms to take advantage of consumer preferences, and it has focused on and has been successful in supplying sizeable portions of numerous large vehicle platforms. As a result, a significant portion of the automotive steel that the company sells is used to produce these popular larger vehicles. In addition to benefiting from the company’s exposure to consumers’ strong demand for larger vehicles, these vehicles also typically contain a higher volume of steel than smaller sedans and compact cars, providing the company the opportunity to sell a higher volume of its steel products.
The company collaborates with its automotive customers and their suppliers to develop innovative solutions using its developments in light weighting, efficiency, and material strength and formability across its extensive product portfolio, in combination with its automotive stamping and tube-making capabilities. During 2023, the company introduced an all-steel battery box design utilizing various grades of AHSS for improved use for lower GHG emissions, to maintain light-weighting targets, and to gain cost benefits when compared to using alternative materials.
As a producer in North America of high-efficiency NOES, which is a critical component of EV motors, the company is positioned to potentially benefit from the growth of EVs going forward.
Infrastructure and Manufacturing Market
The company sells a variety of its steel products, including hot-rolled, cold-rolled, galvanized, plate, stainless, electrical, and rail, to the infrastructure and manufacturing market. This market includes sales to manufacturers of HVAC, appliances, power transmission and distribution transformers, storage tanks, ships, railcars, wind towers, machinery parts, heavy equipment, military armor, and railway lines. Domestic construction activity and the replacement of aging infrastructure directly affect sales of steel to this market.
Distributors and Converters Market
Virtually all of the grades of steel the company produces are sold to the steel distributors and converters market. This market generally represents downstream steel service centers, which source various types of steel from the company and fabricate it according to their customers' needs. The company’s steel is typically sold to this market on a spot basis or under contracts linked to steel pricing indices.
Steel Producers Market
The steel producers market represents third-party sales to other steel producers, including those who operate blast furnaces and EAFs. It includes any sales of raw materials and semi-finished and finished goods, including iron ore pellets, coal, coke, HBI, scrap, slab, and other steel products.
FPT is one of the largest processors of prime scrap in the U.S. The company’s scrap presence has developed further since acquiring FPT, as it has leveraged its long-standing flat-rolled automotive and other customer relationships into recycling partnerships. The company’s steelmaking operations consume a large portion of the ferrous scrap processed by FPT. It also has third-party sales of ferrous and non-ferrous scrap.
Production from the company’s iron ore mines is predominantly consumed by its steelmaking operations. During 2024, the company sold 2 million long tons of iron ore products to third parties from its share of production from its iron ore mines. The merchant portion of its iron ore pellet production is sold pursuant to long-term supply agreements or through spot contracts.
Applied Technology, Research and Development
The company’s research and innovation spend totaled $27 million in 2024.
During 2023, the company introduced its C-STAR protection design, which was developed for the purpose of providing EV battery protection for improved safety performance and can be used in any type of light vehicle. The company also introduced an all-steel battery box design utilizing various grades of AHSS for safety performance and lower GHG emissions, to maintain light-weighting targets, and to gain cost benefits when compared to using alternative materials. The company is also a leading producer in North America of high-efficiency NOES, which is a critical component of EV motors. Its MOTOR-MAX NOES product line is used for high-frequency motors and generators.
Regulatory Developments
In 2023, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized new standards under its ozone transport authority for nitrogen oxide (an ozone precursor) on various industries (including the steel and iron ore sectors) that operate in specific states, including numerous states where the company operates (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia).
The rules apply to all of the company’s Minnesota iron ore mining and pelletizing operations and required submittal of a Mercury Reduction Plan to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency in 2018.
Raw Materials
Iron Ore
The company owns or co-owns five active iron ore mines in Minnesota and Michigan. Based on its ownership in these mines, its share of annual rated iron ore production capacity is approximately 29 million long tons, which supplies the vast majority of the iron ore needed for its steelmaking operations.
HBI
The company’s investment into HBI production provides it access, when needed, to clean iron units in order to make advanced steel and stainless products. It has an annual capacity of 1.9 million metric tons of HBI.
Coke and Coal
The company owns five active cokemaking facilities, three of which are located within its Burns Harbor, Lake Erie, and Hamilton facilities. These facilities currently provide more than half of the coke requirements for its steelmaking operations and have an annual rated capacity of 4.0 million net tons. Additionally, the company has coke supply agreements with suppliers that provide its remaining requirements.
The company has annual rated metallurgical coal production capacity of 1.8 million net tons from its Princeton mine, which supplies a portion of its metallurgical coal needs.
Steel Scrap
The company owns the assets of FPT, which provides it sourcing and processing capabilities for both prime and obsolete scrap. FPT includes various facilities that are primarily located in the Midwest near its steel facilities. Additionally, the company’s access to scrap furthers its commitment to being an environmentally friendly, low-carbon intensity steelmaker with a cleaner materials mix, as it is able to better optimize productivity at its existing EAFs and BOFs.
The majority of the company’s scrap requirements can be generated or processed from internal sources, including scrap generated at its steel production facilities.
History
The company was founded in 1847. The company was incorporated in 1985. It was formerly known as Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. and changed its name to Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. in 2017.