Steel Products

SMU Steel Summit: Goncalves to Speak His Mind

March 2, 2020

Lourenco Goncalves is well known for speaking his mind. As an unconventional thinker and investor, he has put himself, and his company, at the center of the changes that are transforming the steel industry—and not for the first time in his career. The Chairman, President and CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs, Inc., will be a keynote speaker on Tuesday, Aug. 25, during the Steel Market Update Steel Summit in Atlanta.

Cleveland-Cliffs expects to close on its purchase of AK Steel later this month. This marriage of raw material supplier and integrated steel producer will give the combined company a unique competitive position in the North American steel market with footholds in mining, integrated and minimill steel production.

“With the acquisition of AK Steel, Cleveland-Cliffs becomes the most relevant supplier of steel to the automotive industry in the United States,” Goncalves claimed in his usual bold fashion in remarks to analysts and investors during a recent conference call. AK Steel is a long-time supplier of high-quality steels to the auto industry, and under Goncalves’ leadership hopes to capitalize on the coming surge in electric vehicles.

Cleveland-Cliffs also plans to start production in June at its new hot-briquetted iron plant in Toledo, Ohio, which will supply HBI to EAF mills in the Great Lakes and South. Cliffs anticipates producing 1.9 million metric tons of HBI in 2021 when the facility is fully ramped up, replacing a large portion of U.S. pig iron imports.

Goncalves’ 30 years of experience in the metals and mining industries also includes a decade at the helm of Metals USA Holding Corp., one of the organizations that led the rapid consolidation of the service center industry in the early 2000s. A metallurgical engineer, Goncalves also served as President and CEO of California Steel Industries from March 1998 to February 2003, and prior to that was employed by CSN in Brazil.

What does the future hold for Cleveland-Cliffs, AK Steel and the steel industry? “The opportunity ahead of us is actually bigger than what we first envisioned,” Goncalves says. He will share his unusual perspective during SMU’s 2020 Steel Summit, set for Aug. 24-26 at Atlanta’s Georgia International Convention Center. Register by clicking here or by going to the website address www.SteelMarketUpdate.com/Events/Steel-Summit.