Market Data
November 12, 2025
Great Lakes iron ore shipments slow in October
Written by Laura Miller
US-flagged shipments of iron ore on the Great Lakes are on the decline. Ore shipments in October were the lowest they’ve been in that month in five years.
This could reflect the broader US trend of idling integrated steelmaking capacity, which is heavily ore-dependent, and replacing it with scrap-based EAF steelmaking.
The Lake Carriers’ Association, which represents the US-flag Great Lakes fleet, reported 4,395,721 short tons (st) of iron ore flowed through US ports on the Great Lakes in October.
Shipments fell 6.2% from the previous month and 14.2% from October 2024. Compared to the month’s average of 5,063,939 st from 2020 to 2024, shipments were off 7.4%.
Year to date (YTD), the iron ore trade of 31,406,578 st was down 14% from last year and down 6.6% from the five-year average.
Compared to the average of the previous five years, YTD shipments were up 10% and 4.5%, respectively, at the ports in Marquette, Mich., and Silver Bay, Minn., and remained flat through Duluth, Minn.
But YTD shipments were off 20% at the port in Superior, Wisc., 13% at the port of Cleveland, and 7% at the Two Harbors port in Minnesota.
