Cleveland-Cliffs loses $700M in 2024

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. is reporting a more than $430 million loss in the fourth quarter of 2024 and more than $700 million for the entire year.

“Our results in 2024 were a consequence of the worst steel demand environment since 2010 (ex-COVID),” Cliffs President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves says. “Cleveland-Cliffs is an American steel company, designed to supply high-end manufacturers producing things in the United States. That said, for the first time, the number of cars sold in the U.S. that were produced abroad and imported into the U.S. surpassed the number of cars sold that were produced domestically.

“With this decline in domestic automotive production and too much imported steel from abroad that drove unsustainably low steel prices, Cliffs was deeply impacted. As a steel producer equipped to supply high-end steel—like automotive exposed parts, among others—we by design carry a higher fixed cost structure, and we are more impacted than others when markets are weak.”

The Cleveland-based company’s fixed cost structure includes iron mining and processing facilities in the U.S. Midwest and blast furnace/basic oxygen furnace (BOF) steel mills in Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

The impact of managing such operations in a low-demand environment was particularly evident in the fourth quarter, according to Goncalves, adding that the company expects to be the trough going forward.

In the fourth quarter, Cliffs' generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) net loss was $434 million, or 92 cents per diluted share. In the fourth quarter of 2023, Cliffs recorded a net loss of $139 million, or 31 cents per diluted share.

For all of 2024, the company's GAAP net loss was $708 million, or $1.57 per diluted share compared with 2023 net income of $450 million, or 78 cents per diluted share.

For the full year of 2024, the firm's consolidated revenue was $19.2 billion compared with the prior year's consolidated revenues of $22 billion. The company says lower steel index pricing in 2024 contributed to its lower revenue total, with the impact on profitability partially offset by lower operating costs.

Looking at the current year, Goncalves says, “Since Jan. 20, President [Donald] Trump has made clear that proper enforcement of our trade laws and a supportive industrial policy prioritizing manufacturing in the U.S. are both being implemented. That should benefit Cleveland-Cliffs more than others.

“As of late February, Cleveland-Cliffs is well on the way for a dramatic rebound in 2025. We can already see the early signals of this rebound in automotive pull, index pricing and our overall order book.”

Although a tariff regimen is poised to go into effect on the U.S.-Canada border, Goncalves expresses optimism for the future of the recently acquired Stelco steelmaking complex in Ontario.

“With the addition of Stelco’s spot-price-driven nonautomotive book of business to our footprint, we are even better equipped now to ride this upside than in previous cycles as we are now less dependent on fixed price contracts,” he says.