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.”
Goncalves visited Weirton last July to announce plans for the transformer facility, standing before a crowd which included local workers and union leaders at one of the company’s facilities in the Half Moon Industrial Park. The announcement followed the decision earlier in 2024 to idle Weirton’s tin mill – the last remaining operational component of the former Weirton Steel.
Among those attending the July announcement was then-West Virginia treasurer, Riley Moore, who now represents the state as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives.
“For generations, the Northern Panhandle of West Virginia has forged the steel that kept our country strong, prosperous, and free. Today’s announcement is nothing short of heartbreaking,” Moore said in a release issued Wednesday afternoon. “Last year I stood in front of the men and women of United Steelworkers Local 2911, laying out a vision to get the plant running again and the steel workers back on the job. Despite today’s disheartening news, Weirton remains one of the best places in America to produce steel because of our hardworking, skilled workforce with a century of experience in the industry.”
Moore said he has reached out to representatives of the Trump Administration, members of Congress, and others in the private sector concerning Weirton.
“I’ll keep fighting for Weirton and to keep these good-paying union steel jobs in the Northern Panhandle,” he said.
Plans for the transformer facility would have included an investment of $150 million, including a $50 million incentive package provided by the State of West Virginia, and the creation of 600 union jobs.
Steel for the transformers was to be provided by Cleveland-Cliffs’ Butler Works facility in Pennsylvania.
In addition to the halting of investment in Weirton, the company also announced the full idling of its Minorca mine and partial Hibbing Taconite mine, both in Minnesota; the idling of some of its facilities in Dearborn, Mich.; its rail facility in Steelton, Pa.; the plate finishing facility in Conshohocken, Pa.; and its strip mill facility in Riverdale, Ill.
