Cleveland, Ohio-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. has announced that it has entered into a revised commercial agreement with ArcelorMittal USA Inc. to supply iron ore pellets for an additional two years through the end of January 2017, with a mutual option to extend for a third year.
In addition, Cliffs and ArcelorMittal USA have also extended their joint partnership for the Empire Mine located on the Marquette Iron Range in Michigan. Previously, Cliffs had announced the impending closure of the Empire Mine. Until the amended commercial agreement was reached with ArcelorMittal, the Empire Mine did not have a customer for pellet production beyond 2014. In addition, the partnership arrangement was scheduled to expire automatically in December 2014, without the mutual agreement of both companies to extend. With this decision, Cliffs and ArcelorMittal will extend the life of this mining operation into 2016.
Cliffs is maintaining its 2014 full-year sales and production volume expectation of 22-23 million tons from its US iron ore business. The company said that this extension would require very limited capital.