Metal Industry News

Cleveland-Cliffs Completes AK Acquisition

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Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. has completed the acquisition of AK Steel, integrating the country’s largest producer of iron ore pellets with a domestic steelmaker. The combined company will be led by Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves.

“This is a new era for Cleveland-Cliffs as a producer of differentiated, high-quality iron ore, metallics and steel in North America. The new Cliffs will begin from a unique position of strength in our industry, with a dynamic combination of assets including two efficient integrated blast furnace steel mills, two electric arc furnace plants, a new state-of-the-art HBI plant and several other highly technologically developed facilities,” Goncalves said.

Founded in 1847, Cleveland-Cliffs is among the largest vertically integrated producers of differentiated iron ore and steel in North America. In 2020, Cliffs also expects to be the sole producer of hot briquetted iron in the Great Lakes region.

Headquartered in Cleveland, Ohio, Cleveland-Cliffs employs approximately 12,000 people across mining and steel manufacturing operations in the United States, Canada and Mexico.

“We will be catering to a desirable customer base and primarily doing business in the United States, the most resilient manufacturing economy in the world,” said Goncalves. “I am honored to be leading a company that is built on such a rich history, and now combines mining, pelletizing, direct-reduction, EAF steelmaking, BF/BOF steelmaking, highly technologically developed finishing mills and automated manufacturing of auto-parts.”  

AK Steel, headquartered in West Chester, Ohio, is a leading producer of flat-rolled carbon, stainless and electrical steel products, primarily for the automotive, infrastructure and manufacturing, including electrical power, and distributors and converters markets. It has annual steelmaking capacity of 4.5 million tons.

AK Steel CEO Roger Newport retired with the completion of the transaction.