Meet the executive who is changing the face of steelmaking

Cleveland-Cliffs used to be known only for providing the iron ore to the steel mills, but under the leadership of Lourenco Goncalves, the company now is the continent's largest flat-rolled steel company as well. maki_shmaki/iStock/Getty Images Plus

It’s not every day that you can declare a member of the domestic manufacturing scene “transformative,” but Cleveland-Cliffs Chairman/President/CEO Lourenco Goncalves has had a couple of years that would be hard to match. (You’ll also get a chance to meet this important individual at the Fabricators & Manufacturers Annual Meeting March 1-3 in Miami, but we’ll get to that a little bit later.)

At the start of 2020, Cleveland-Cliffs was a mining company, providing iron ore to steelmakers. It ended the year as the new owner of both AK Steel, acquired in March 2020, and ArcelorMittal USA, purchased in November 2020, making the company the largest flat-rolled steel company and the largest iron ore pellet producer in North America. The timing of the deals couldn’t have been any better, as the manufacturing boom that following the early days of the pandemic-related economic shutdown increased demand for steel and drove up prices to a record high, almost four times what they were before COVID-19 ever appeared. That’s a pretty good year.

Last year shaped up to be a pretty important one for Goncalves. In October 2021 Cleveland-Cliffs purchased Ferrous Processing and Trading Co., the largest processor and distributor of prime ferrous scrap in North America. Prime scrap is the key input for electric-arc furnaces looking to produce higher-quality grades of steel.

Why would a company with only four electric-arc furnaces compared to its eight traditional blast furnaces, which create steel products out of iron ore, want to firm up its grasp of prime scrap? Goncalves is protecting current interests and looking ahead to the future. In his bio on the Cleveland-Cliffs website, Goncalves describes the company as holding “an industry-leading market position in automotive steel.”

The automotive sector is a huge buyer of steel made in the mills with the huge blast furnaces, but the future of steelmaking is tied to electric-arc furnaces, which are much more energy-efficient than the old mills. If the automakers are going to buy high-quality steel from mills employing electric-arc furnace technology, these major steel consumers are going to require that those state-of-the-art mills use the highest-quality scrap to create the steel. Cleveland-Cliffs made a smart move in 2021 to prepare for a very different future just down the road.

For these efforts, Goncalves, who has been leading Cleveland-Cliffs since 2014, has been named the Association for Iron & Steel Technology’s Steelmaker of the Year in 2021, and Global Platts presented him with the CEO/Chairperson of the Year Award in the metals area. Goncalves also was named the Steel Executive of the Year by the Association of Steel Distributors and will be honored at a banquet occurring Tuesday, March 1, the first day of the FMA Annual Meeting.

Before that happens, however, Goncalves will be providing the keynote address earlier in the day. During his presentation, “The Steel Industry of the Future,” he will discuss Cleveland-Cliffs’ transformation from a mining company to the most dominant steelmaker in North America and share his perspectives about what’s next on the horizon for the steel industry.

It’s not every day that metal fabricators can meet and hear from an individual who might have more impact on their industry than even the U.S. president, but the FMA Annual Meeting is where that can happen. In addition, fabricators can network with their peers, who are dealing with the same headaches related to material prices and rising labor costs, and learn tips and tricks to run their operations more effectively.

Don’t miss out on this opportunity. Visit www.fmamfg.org/annualmeeting for more details.

Goncalves, who has been named the Steel Executive of the Year by the Association of Steel Distributors, is slated to speak at the FMA Annual Meeting on March 1.