Cleveland-Cliffs completes acquisition of AK Steel

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., Cleveland, has announced that it has completed the acquisition of AK Steel Holding Corp., integrating North America’s largest producer of iron ore pellets downstream into the production of value-added steel and specialty manufactured parts for the automotive industry. 

According to a news release from Cleveland-Cliffs, the combined company will be led by Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer 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,” Goncalves says. “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. 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.

“I am honored to be leading a company that is built on such a rich history, and now combines mining, pelletizing, direct-reduction, EAF (electric arc furnace) steelmaking, BF/BOF (basic oxygen furnace) steelmaking, highly technologically developed finishing mills and automated manufacturing of auto-parts,” he continues. “I am also very pleased to welcome the AK Steel employees and the unions representing the workforce throughout the country to the Cleveland-Cliffs family. From now on, we are a single, united and very strong team.”