Steel Mills

EAF at Cliffs' Middletown Works Would Make Electrical Steels for EVs

Written by Michael Cowden

April 24, 2022

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. will install an electric-arc furnace (EAF) at its steel mill in Middletown, Ohio, to make electrical steels for electric vehicles (EVs) – but only if demand merits it.

“Let’s see how many of my clients will be really doing what they’re saying they’re going to do in terms of electric vehicles,” company chairman, president and CEO Lourenco Goncalves said.

electric vehicle“For now, it’s just a permit. For now, it’s just the preparation for something that might happen,” he added. “I don’t believe that all of them (automakers) will be successful.”

Goncalves made the comment during the Cleveland-based steelmaker’s first quarter earnings conference call on Friday, April 22.

SMU has reported on the air permit for an EAF at Middletown Works. Cliffs had not previously disclosed that the EAF, if built, would focus on electrical steels.

But the company has said it has no plans to replace the blast furnace at Middletown with an EAF given that the furnace was relined a year ago and so has at least 15 years of life left.

An EAF to make electrical steels appears to square with that pledge. It could complement the carbon hot-rolled, cold-rolled and coated flat-rolled steels currently made at Middletown.

Electrical steels are expected to see increased demand as more EVs – and the charging infrastructure necessary for them – are built.

Cliffs already makes electric steels at its Butler Works in western Pennsylvania. And demand is good. “We are sold out,” Goncalves noted.

Goncalves also said that Cliffs is currently the only domestic manufacturer of a full range of electrical steels. But the company faces import competition, mostly from South Korea, whose steelmakers “love to dump,” he alleged.

The US imported 50,228.7 metric tons of electrical sheet and strip steel in 2021. The bulk of that material came from Japan (23,054.7 tons), with South Korea a close second (16,943.6 tons). France was a distant third (4,220 tons), according to Commerce Department figures.

By Michael Cowden, Michael@SteelMarketUpdate.com

Michael Cowden

Michael Cowden is editor-in-chief for Steel Market Update. Cowden has covered the steel industry since 2007. He specializes in flat-rolled steel but has also reported on steel long products, steel pipe and tube, and aluminum. Before joining SMU, Cowden held reporting jobs at Fastmarkets AMM in Chicago, the Associated Press in Pittsburgh, and the Cambodia Daily in Phnom Penh. He has also worked as a copy editor and in marketing at the University of Chicago Press. Cowden has a BA in English from the University of Chicago and an MSJ journalism from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. Contact him at michael@steelmarketupdate.com or 724-759-7872.

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