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
Read more from Stephanie RitenbaughLatest in Steel Mills

Atlas completes Evraz NA deal, renames firm, and hires former USS exec as CEO
Atlas Holdings has completed its acquisition of Evraz North America (Evraz NA) and its subsidiaries.

ArcelorMittal: As tariffs slow global growth, Calvert could be a bright spot
ArcelorMittal expects less demand growth across most of the markets it operates in, including the US, because of President Donald Trump’s tariffs. But the Luxembourg-based steelmaker also thinks it stands to benefit from an increasingly regionalized world thanks to investments like the new EAF at its mill in Calvert, Ala.

Ternium posts solid Q2, expects further shipment growth
Latin American steel producer Ternium delivered a solid performance in the second quarter of 2025. Performance was driven primarily by higher realized steel prices in Mexico, even as shipment volumes declined slightly across its regional portfolio.

Algoma swings to loss on ‘unprecedented disruptions’ and trade barriers
Canada’s Algoma Steel saw a sharp loss in the second quarter amid a continued challenging market environment and “tariff uncertainties.”

Nucor eyes long-term gains amid strong demand and trade enforcement
Resilient demand across its steel product lines, combined with the continued ramp-up of key expansion projects, drove Nucor’s improved financial results and record-setting performance in the second quarter. That’s according to company executives speaking on an earnings conference call on Tuesday.