By Craig Howell, The Weirton Daily Times
WEIRTON — Cleveland-Cliffs has decided to halt investment in a planned transformer manufacturing facility to be located in Weirton, company officials announced Wednesday.
“Our first-quarter results were negatively impacted by underperforming non-core assets and the lagging effect of lower index prices in late 2024 and early 2025,” said Chairman, President and CEO Lourenco Goncalves. “As a result, we are taking decisive action to streamline our operations and enhance efficiency. This will drive meaningful fixed cost savings and sharpen our focus on our core strength: supplying steel to the automotive industry. The Trump Administration has shown strong support for both the steel and the automotive sectors, and Cliffs is uniquely positioned at the intersection of these two industries. As a result of the actions taken by the Administration designed to boost the production of vehicles in the United States, we have already arranged higher volume commitments with our automotive OEM customers, and we now have a clear line of sight to recover the stable EBITDA base that the automotive business has historically delivered.”
The decision to no longer deploy capital toward the Weirton transformer project was among several company decisions announced Wednesday, along with the company’s first-quarter financial results. Officials said the decision was related to “changes in scope from the project partner that no longer meet Cliffs’ investment requirements.”
