Cleveland-Cliffs Lake Erie steel plant

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Cleveland-Cliffs Lake Erie steel plant, also known as Stelco Lake Erie, Lake Erie Works, US Steel Canada (predecessor), is a steel plant in Nanticoke, Ontario, Canada that operates blast furnace (BF) and basic oxygen furnace (BOF) technology.

Location

The map below shows the exact location of the plant in Nanticoke, Ontario, Canada:

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• Location: 2330 Regional Road #3, Nanticoke, Ontario, N0A 1L0, Canada
• Coordinates (WGS 84): 42.805448, -80.095313 (exact)

Background

The Stelco Lake Erie steel plant began operating in 1980. In 2007, US Steel Canada purchased Stelco, naming the Lake Erie plant to 'US Steel Canada'; ten years later in 2017, Bedrock Industries bought Stelco and reinstalled its original name. The plant was shut down briefly from 2009 to 2010. The plant is powered by the Sir Adam Beck Hydroelectric Power Stations grid near Niagara Falls. In 2019, Stelco announced it would partner with DTE Energy to build a 65MW waste heat facility to use cleaner energy.

Worker Safety

In 2023, two workers were severely burned and one died from steam released by the coke oven while they were repairing steel cladding on the quench tower. The air horn in the alarm had been removed for inspection.

Upgrades

Stelco Lake Erie has reported $600 million CAD in investments and upgrades since 2000.

In March 2023, made an agreement to test Utility’s eXERO™ technology, converting off-gasses into hydrogen.

Port

Stelco operates a 1.2 km dock on Lake Erie to receive St. Lawrence dimension ships.

Plant Details

Table 1: General Plant Details

Start date	Workforce size
1980	1373

Table 2: Ownership and Parent Company Information

Parent company	Parent company PermID	Parent company GEM ID	Owner	Owner company PermID	Owner company GEM ID
Cleveland-Cliffs Inc	4295903753	E100001000649	Cleveland-Cliffs Inc	4295903753	E100001000649

Table 3: Process and Products

Steel product category	Steel products	Steel sector end users	ISO 14001	Main production equipment
finished rolled	cold rolled, tube, coated, hot rolled	automotive, building and infrastructure, energy	2023	BF; BOF

Table 4: Plant-level Crude Steel Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

¹Please see our Frequently Asked Questions page for an explanation of the different capacity operating statuses.

Capacity operating status1	Basic oxygen furnace steelmaking capacity	Nominal crude steel capacity (total)
operating	2500	2500

Table 5: Plant-level Crude Iron Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

¹Please see our Frequently Asked Questions page for an explanation of the different capacity operating statuses.

Capacity operating status1	Blast furnace capacity	Nominal iron capacity (total)
operating	2400	2400

Table 6: Upstream Products Production Capacities (thousand tonnes per annum)

Ferronickel	Sinter	Coke	Pellets
NF	NF	650	NF

Table 7: Actual Plant-level Crude Steel Production by Year (thousand tonnes per annum)

Year	BOF production	Other/unknown steel production
2019	unknown	unknown
2020	unknown	unknown
2021	unknown	unknown
2022	unknown	unknown
2023	unknown	unknown

Table 8: Actual Plant-level Crude Iron Production by Year (thousand tonnes per annum)

Year	BF production	Total (all routes)
2019	1955	1955
2020	1407	1407
2021	2170	2170
2022	2000	2000
2023	2400	2400

Unit Details

Table 9: Blast Furnace Details

Unit name	Status	Start date	Furnace manufacturer and model	Current size	Current capacity (ttpa)	Decarbonization technology	Most recent relining
BF 1	operating	1980	Stelco; Paul Wurth (parts); Saint-Gobain (parts); contributions from the USSR and the Netherlands Hoogoven	2418.0 m3	2400	In March 2023, announced plans to test Utility’s eXERO™ technology, converting off-gasses into hydrogen. Unclear if the blast furnace specifically is being tested.	2020-10-15

Table 10: Basic Oxygen Furnace Details

Unit name	Status	Current capacity (ttpa)	Current size
unknown BOF (1)	operating	1250	245.0 tonnes
unknown BOF (2)	operating	1250	245.0 tonnes

Articles and Resources

Additional data

To access additional data, including an interactive map of steel power plants, a downloadable dataset, and summary data, please visit the Global Iron and Steel Tracker on the Global Energy Monitor website.

Resources

• Company website
• Wikipedia