CLEVELAND — Cleveland-Cliffs told investors on Monday that it had just posted its strongest quarter in three years, and in the same release it said it is indefinitely idling the galvanizing lines at Stelco, the Canadian steelmaker it bought two years ago.
The announcement lands inside a fight. Ottawa has pressed Cliffs since early October over Stelco layoffs in Hamilton, and Industry Minister Mélanie Joly said on Friday that the company must keep the jobs in Canada or face the prospect of selling its Canadian assets.
Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs’ chairman and chief executive, gave his reasons in the release. Stelco’s third quarter was its “strongest quarter since we acquired the company two years ago,” he said, because a better Canadian hot-rolled market made it a positive contributor to EBITDA. But “more needs to be done by the Canadian government to correct a clearly oversupplied market for galvanized steel in Canada.” Having seen no such action and expecting none, Cliffs made “the difficult but necessary decision to indefinitely idle our galvanizing lines at Stelco.”
Cleveland-Cliffs’ release says the move leaves “approximately 2,000 Canadian jobs” preserved, because hot-rolled output continues. It does not say how many people work the galvanizing lines. Ron Wells, president of United Steelworkers Local 1005, has said roughly 330 Hamilton workers face layoffs over three weeks, CTV News reported on Oct. 8. Nothing in Monday’s release ties that figure to the 2,000.
The same document praises a trade environment Joly has attacked. “The trade environment continues to support a healthy American steel industry,” Goncalves said, adding that imports “remain well below historical levels.” Cliffs’ average net selling price for steel rose to $1,177 a ton, from $1,124 in the second quarter and $1,032 a year earlier. Joly called the company’s support for U.S. tariffs “the elephant in the room” in her Friday speech in Toronto, CTV News reported, saying the tariffs directly harm its Canadian operations.
The profit figures carry caveats. Adjusted EBITDA, the $612 million measure, is one Cliffs defines itself; it was $286 million in the second quarter, and the company had guided to $575 million. On a GAAP basis Cliffs still carries a net loss of $198 million for the first nine months of 2026, and long-term debt stood at $7.6 billion on Sept. 30. The fourth-quarter forecast of about $715 million and a 2027 outlook above $4 billion rest, in the release’s words, on “2027 contract changes and prevailing price forecasts.” Cliffs says it cannot reconcile either forecast to net income without unreasonable effort.
What the release does not say is whether idling the lines squares with the job undertakings Ottawa says Cliffs gave when it bought Stelco. Their wording has not appeared in any report TEH reviewed, and TEH found no response to the release from Ottawa or the union by midday Monday. Goncalves says idled workers return “as soon as the current situation improves.” Who decides when that has happened?
