Published: March 22, 2018 |

[Click image to enlarge]

Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves has moved for years to make his company a U.S.-focused operation, and that will happen in entirety by the end of June.

Cliffs formally notified contractors Monday that the company will wind down its 11-million-ton-per-year Koolyanobbing iron ore mine in Australia by June 30, according to published reports in Australia.

The closure isn’t a surprise as Goncalves earlier this year vowed to shut down the mine as soon as it became unprofitable, saying that would likely be later in 2018. But that’s happening sooner than expected as the price that Chinese steelmakers pay for Australian lower-grade, 58-percent iron ore is dropping below the cost of production.

Higher-grade iron ore, such as Minnesota-made taconite pellets that are more than 62 percent iron, is selling for a hefty premium on the global iron ore market, spurring some Minnesota miners to ship at least some of their ore out of the U.S. in recent months.

The Australia shutdown is expected to cost hundreds of jobs lost in the mine, on railroads and in the port of Esperance where the ore was shipped, according to the West Australian newspaper and the website Macrobusiness.com.

A Cliffs spokesperson did not return a request to comment on the situation.

Cliffs also sold off its coal mines and Canadian iron ore operations in recent years under Goncalves’ focus to make it an iron ore-only company focused on the domestic U.S. steelmaking industry in the lower Great Lakes.

Cliffs owns and operates United Taconite in Eveleth/Forbes and Northshore Mining in Silver Bay/Babbitt and is part owner and manager of Hibbing Taconite as well as owner of the Tilden operations in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

Source: Duluth News-Tribune

To stop by Cleveland-Cliffs’ website, CLICK HERE

Be in-the-know when you’re on-the-go!