Steel Mills
Cleveland-Cliffs to Idle Mining Operations
Written by Sandy Williams
April 14, 2020
Cleveland-Cliffs will temporarily idle Northshore Mining in Minnesota and Tilden Mine in Michigan due to current market conditions.
The iron ore supplier plans to work down current inventory from the operations to fulfill its commercial agreements with steel customers. Demand is down at U.S. steel mills, with several adjusting production due to closures in the automotive industry and weak market conditions in oil and gas.
Northshore will be idled from mid-April to August and Tilden will be idled at the end of April with planned restart in July.
“We have evaluated market conditions and the extraordinary disruptions in manufacturing and steel production in North America due to the impact of the COVID-19 market shock,” said Chairman and CEO Lourenco Goncalves. “As our steel customers rationalize their operations’ capacities, we made the decision to adjust our iron ore production during the first half of the year and not continue to build additional iron ore inventory until market conditions improve. Once the North American steel market improves, Cleveland-Cliffs will be able to quickly restart and ramp up production.”
Cliffs recently paused construction at its new HBI plant in Toledo to comply with Ohio COVID-19 guidelines.
Sandy Williams
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