Cleveland-Cliffs increased steel sales by 5% y/y in Q1

The company takes measures to optimize operations and increase efficiency

In the first quarter of 2025, the American steel company Cleveland-Cliffs increased its sales of steel products by 5% year-on-year – to 4.1 million short tons. This is stated in the company’s report.

Of these shipments, 41% were hot-rolled products.

The average net selling price of steel products in January-March this year amounted to $980 per short ton compared to $1175 per ton in the same period in 2024.

The company’s consolidated revenue for the first quarter of 2025 amounted to $4.6 billion compared to $4.3 billion in the previous quarter. In January-March, Cliffs recorded an adjusted net loss of $456 million.

According to Lorenko Gonsalves, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO of Cliffs, the first quarter results were negatively impacted by inefficient non-core assets and delays due to lower index prices in late 2024 and early 2025. According to him, the company is taking steps to optimize operations and increase efficiency. This will lead to significant fixed cost savings and allow the company to focus on supplying steel to the automotive industry.

Gonsalves said that thanks to the measures taken by the Trump administration to stimulate auto production in the United States, the company has already agreed to increase volumes with customers in the original equipment manufacturing sector for the automotive sector.

Between March and May of this year, Cliffs decided to fully or partially shut down six facilities to optimize production space, eliminate unprofitable operations and free up excess working capital.

“These actions are expected to result in annualized savings of more than $300 million, not including additional overhead savings and productivity gains at other facilities. The downtime is not expected to affect flat products production volumes,” the company said.

In addition, Cleveland-Cliffs will no longer allocate capital to the development of its transformer plant in Vinton, West Virginia.

In 2025, Cliffs expects, among other things, a decrease in unit steel costs of approximately $50 per short ton compared to 2024, mainly due to the idling of inefficient assets. Capital expenditures will amount to approximately $725 million (previous forecast – $700 million).

Cleveland-Cliffs has recently announced plans to indefinitely shut down three of its facilities in Riverdale, Illinois, and Conshohocken and Stilton, Pennsylvania. All of them will stop working around June 30. The company explained that this is a forced decision dictated by low demand and prices for specialized products.