When that announcement was made last year, Shawn Coffey, union president of Local 1943, called the news “absolutely huge” for the employees and community.
“It’s a bold statement by the company,” he said. “This shows that we will be making steel for a lot longer.”
Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works, founded as Armco Steel in 1900, planned to invest more than $500 million in federal grants and $1.3 billion of its own funds over a five-year period to upgrade the Middletown plant.
The investment would secure 2,500 jobs at Middletown Works. The project was expected to create 1,200 construction jobs and 170 permanent jobs at the site, union officials had said.
Cleveland-Cliffs Middletown Works is located in the birthplace of Vice President JD Vance.
The move comes after Republicans called to repeal the Inflation Reduction Act in May, which funds the Department of Energy’s $500 million grant to modernize the facility.
Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves in a recent quarterly earnings call said the company had informed the Department of Energy it “would not be pursuing the project.”
He said the company would not have the availability of hydrogen.
“So, there is no point in pursuing something that we know for sure that’s not going to happen,” he said.
Clayton Castle, the city’s communications manager, said the city had no comment on the matter.
Rick Pearce, president of the Chamber serving Middletown, Monroe and Trenton, said “while we’re disappointed that the mill will not get the latest in technology with the blast furnace, I’m certain that they will continue to make steel as they have for more than the last 120 years.”
Mayor Elizabeth Slamka added: “Steel is not going anywhere. Steel is still the lifeblood as it has been over the last century.”
Just last year, the news about the future of the steel plant was much brighter. In March 2024 the Department of Energy announced negotiations had begun with Cleveland-Cliffs for the $500 million grant.
The plan called for the plant to retire one blast furnace, install two electric melting furnaces and use hydrogen-based ironmaking technology. The project aimed to eliminate 1 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year from the largest supplier of steel to the U.S. automotive industry, the company announced.
Then significant cuts were made to the Department of Energy’s Regional Clean Hydrogen Hubs by the Trump administration.
The Department of Energy cut $3.7 billion in clean energy projects in May and began an audit of $15 billion in grants issued during the Biden administration. The Cleveland-Cliffs grant was one of them.
In the earnings call, Goncalves said the company is involved in conversations with the Department of Energy on “revamping” the cancelled project to “preserve and enhance Middletown using beautiful coal, beautiful coke, beautiful natural gas, our American iron ore from Minnesota, keeping the flagship Middletown Works as our flagship facility supplying automotive steels, and making our blast furnace operate fully under (artificial intelligence).”
Cliffs purchased AK for $3 billion in 2020 and also owns the Research and Innovation Center in Middletown.
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