Steel Mills
Cliffs blames muted auto demand for steep losses in 2024
Written by Stephanie Ritenbaugh
February 3, 2025
Ahead of its fourth-quarter earnings report, Cleveland-Cliffs’ chief executive said that other than 2020, when COVID-19 hit, “2024 was the worst year for domestic steel demand since 2010.”
“As the largest supplier to the automotive industry in North America, we were especially impacted by muted demand from this sector in the second half of the year. This was the primary driver of our weaker results, particularly in the fourth quarter, which we expect to be the trough as we look forward,” Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs’ chairman, president, and CEO, said in a preliminary earnings report.
However, the Cleveland-based steelmaker noted that order books are starting to improve in the new year.
The company is “confident that the manufacturing-friendly items on President Trump’s agenda will have an outsized benefit on Cleveland-Cliffs. This includes the recently announced tariffs on Mexico, Canada, and China and the expectation that there is more to come on steel specifically,” Goncalves said Monday morning.
For Q4’24, Cleveland-Cliffs expects to report steel shipments of 3.8 million short tons, revenues of $4.3 billion, and an adjusted EBITDA loss of about $85 million.
In the previous quarter, Cliffs posted a $ 242 million net loss on sales of $4.57 billion.
For the full year, the company expects to report steel shipments of 15.6 million st, revenues of $19.2 billion, and adjusted EBITDA of about $775 million.
Cliffs completed its acquisition of Canadian steelmaker Stelco Holdings on Nov. 1, so the report only includes results from Stelco since then.
The company plans to release its full earnings results after the US market closes on Feb. 24.
Stephanie Ritenbaugh
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