US integrated steelmaker Cleveland-Cliffs will idle the No. 4 blast furnace at its 2.1 short ton/yr Indiana Harbor complex for the next two months and raise flat-rolled prices.
The move comes in addition to a more than 100-day outage at one of Cleveland-Cliffs' blast furnaces at its Cleveland, Ohio, mill.
If idled by the end of April, the company will take approximately 1.4mn st of raw steel production out of the market for 2022.
The company also announced it would increase the spot base price for all April orders of hot rolled coil (HRC) cold rolled coil (CRC) and hot dipped galvanized (HDG) coil by $50/st.
The Argus US Midwest HRC ex-works assessment has fallen by 35pc since the beginning of the year to $1,029.25/st on 15 February.
Chief executive Lourenco Goncalves cited operational efficiences from using more prime scrap and internally sourced hot briquetted iron (HBI) to stretch the its raw steel production, allowing it to make similar amounts of steel even as it throttles down to seven operating blast furnaces.
Steel shipments in 2022, which were estimated to be similar to the 15.9mn st shipped in 2021, are not expected to fall.
The Indiana Harbor move will not affect downstream operations at the nearby Riverdale works, which will be supplied by the Indiana Harbor No. 7 blast furnace, the company's largest and sole remaining operational furnace at Indiana Harbor.
