Cleveland-Cliffs Q2 2026 Earnings Call Transcript

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Provided by Quartr
July 23, 2026

Key Takeaways

  • Positive Sentiment: Cleveland-Cliffs said Q2 adjusted EBITDA rose to $286 million, free cash flow turned positive again, and management expects a much stronger second half with Q3 EBITDA guidance of $575 million and further improvement in Q4.
  • Positive Sentiment: Executives pointed to rising steel prices, higher shipment volumes, and lower unit costs as the main drivers of near-term improvement, with Q3 shipments expected to top 4.3 million tons and costs expected to decline sequentially.
  • Positive Sentiment: Management said the company is benefiting from a strong automotive backdrop, including higher auto shipments, improved finishing line utilization, and top supplier awards from Toyota and General Motors.
  • Neutral Sentiment: The company reiterated that trade policy and domestic sourcing trends are supporting its outlook, while noting that upcoming contract resets in non-automotive and automotive markets should be priced meaningfully higher than last year.
  • Neutral Sentiment: Cleveland-Cliffs highlighted plans to use cash flow and asset-sale proceeds to delever below 2.5x net leverage by next year, while also noting ongoing strategic discussions, including POSCO, and a constructive start to union contract negotiations.
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Earnings Conference Call
Cleveland-Cliffs Q2 2026
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Daryl, and I am your conference facilitator today. I would like to welcome everyone to Cleveland-Cliffs' second quarter 2026 earnings conference call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session. The company reminds you that certain comments made on today's call will include predictive statements that are intended to be made as forward-looking within the safe harbor protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although the company believes that its forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that can cause actual results to differ materially.

Operator

Important factors that can cause results to differ materially are set forth in reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and news releases filed with the SEC, which are available on the company's website. Today's conference call is also available and being broadcast at clevelandcliffs.com. At the conclusion of the call, it will be archived on the website and available for replay. The company will also discuss results excluding certain special items. Reconciliation for Regulation G purposes can be found on the earnings release, which was published this morning. At this time, I would like to introduce Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Thank you, Daryl, and good morning to everyone. After several quarters of talking about the future earnings power of this company, we can finally point to tangible evidence that the progression we have been forecasting is now reality. During the second quarter, we returned to positive free cash flow and tripled our adjusted EBITDA from the first quarter. While the second quarter represents meaningful progress, it still understates where this company is headed over the coming quarters. Q2 maintenance outages and our lagged contracts still did not allow us to demonstrate the full capability of our asset base. That will be more visible in Q3, in which we are expecting to more than double our Q2 EBITDA. Due to our health backlog and improved pricing, the second half of 2026 will look substantially better than the first half of the year.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

With our third quarter adjusted EBITDA guidance of $575 million, we have a situation where higher prices, lower costs, and higher shipping volumes will all be converging at once. Weather-related impacts are behind us. Finishing lines are full, and pricing remains strong. Better yet, at the current curve for steel, we expect the fourth quarter to further outperform the third quarter in adjusted EBITDA, with even more improvements to come in 2027. When profits were below our standard at this time last year, I laid out three key areas of improvement that would bring us back to a respectable level. Automotive volume recovered, footprint optimization, and the expiration of the uneconomic slab supply contract we had in place with ArcelorMittal Calvert. These three factors have all now materialized, and with stronger pricing, the improvements we see are even better than previously forecasted. Automotive demand deserves special mention.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Cliffs continues to be the supplier of choice for the automotive sector in the United States, illustrated by the fact that we have received the top supplier award from both Toyota and General Motors so far this year. During the quarter, our shipments of steel to our automotive clients were the highest in the last two years. Our finishing lines, which run at suboptimal utilization levels for the last couple of years, are now back to running at a healthy level of utilization with a favorable impact on our costs. Thanks to our multi-year contracting strategy, the ongoing reshoring of automotive production into the United States, and major supply chain disruption suffered by competitors, our automotive coating volumes are back to the strong levels we saw back in 2023.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

This improving situation in both steel and automotive demand can be attributed to the long overdue trade policies we now have in place in the United States. Section 232 has been the single most effective industrial policy implemented in our country in a generation. We applaud President Trump, Secretary Howard Lutnick, and USTR Ambassador Jamieson Greer for their conviction in these policies. The results are visible. Manufacturing investment is accelerating. Domestic steel utilization is improving. Capital is being allocated to U.S.-based production rather than offshore production. The reshoring movement that's now occurring throughout American manufacturing simply would not be happening at its current scale without Section 232 and the enforced mechanisms that support it. We have long argued that America cannot maintain a strong manufacturing base without maintaining a strong steel industry.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Today, that argument is no longer theoretical and has been validated by real-world investment decisions made by some of the largest companies in the world into automotive production, electrical infrastructure, and defense-related applications, among several other sectors. All of those investments require steel, and Cleveland-Cliffs is uniquely positioned to meet that demand, given the breadth of our product portfolio and our domestic footprint. Besides their great success in combating illegal trade of dumped steel and steel derivatives into the United States, the U.S. government has been instrumental in making our industry more energy efficient via grants from the Department of Energy. Our Butler Works induction reheat furnace upgrade continues to progress well, and upon completion in 2028, will provide us with the ability to supply more tons of the high-end, grain-oriented electrical steels our country needs.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

In addition, we have made major progress on the re-scoping of the Middletown project in compliance with the Trump administration's energy dominance goals. The Middletown blast furnace is due for a reline by 2030, and this DOE grant will allow us to go further in optimizing the furnace and maximizing energy efficiency by capturing and using blast furnace gas to generate electricity on-site. We expect to make a public announcement in the next month or so. As discussions surrounding USMCA continue, every outcome that has been publicly discussed would be a positive outcome for domestic steel producers. Whether the final result includes stronger melt and pour requirements, tighter enforcement of rules of origin, increased verification requirements, additional scrutiny of transshipped material, or stronger content requirements for automotive production, each one of those outcomes favors steel produced in North America by companies with meaningful domestic operations.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We are uniquely positioned because we are here in the U.S. and we are miners, pellet producers, iron makers, steel makers, and downstream manufacturers. Therefore, every policy that emphasizes domestic content, domestic production, and domestic manufacturing directly benefits Cleveland-Cliffs. A similar trade dynamic applies to Canada. We were pleased to see the extension of the Canadian tariff rate quota system through June of 2027. Canada has struggled with many of the same challenges faced by the United States prior to President Trump. The world has way too much steelmaking capacity, and certain countries continue to export that excess capacity at prices disconnected from economic reality. Our Stelco results have improved, and their contribution to Cleveland-Cliffs is part of our second half improved guidance.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

While we have seen improvements on the hot roll side, which the vast majority of what we do in Canada, on the finishing side, Stelco is still lagging. Without further measures to protect fair trade in Canada, the future competitiveness of our galvanizing lines in Hamilton is at risk. We continue to defend our point of view with the Canadian government officials, asking them to do what is right to protect the steel industry in Canada, just as our American government has done here in the United States. Extending the TRQ system through June of 2027 is an important step toward protecting Canadian jobs and creating a healthier North American steel market, but it's not sufficient. If Canada really wants to have a domestic steel industry, more needs to be done. One other matter to highlight in today's call is our Cleveland-Cliffs safety record, including Stelco.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

I don't talk publicly about safety very often, but we have worked very diligently since the two acquisitions of AK Steel and ArcelorMittal back in 2020 to implement in our steel plants the same level of Cleveland-Cliffs safety standards we put in place in our mines since we took office in 2014. In fact, our total recordable injury rate for the last three years has been best in class. Safety is also good business practice. Because of our sustained safety performance over multiple years, we are now seeing meaningful reduction in workers' compensation expense and other related costs. One important item to mention today, we have officially kicked off negotiations with the United Steelworkers Union to renew our collective bargain agreement, and I'm pleased to say that the process is off to a constructive and productive start.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We are approaching these negotiations like we always do, with a shared commitment to maintaining a competitive and sustainable business while continuing to create opportunities for our employees. Based on the dialogue to date, we are confident that we can reach an agreement that strengthens our partnership and delivers meaningful benefit for both Cliffs and the USW. Before turning it over, I would like to recognize Celso's appointment to our board of directors as President and CFO that was announced this morning. This appointment formally reflects the role that he has already been playing in driving our strategy and delivering important financial accomplishments over the past decade. Celso has been an indispensable partner to me and a trusted leader across our organization, and this promotion better reflects his role. It also marks the early stages of a transition in leadership.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

I'm not going anywhere anytime soon, and I plan to lead this company for several more years with Celso as my right hand. With that introduction, I will turn it over to him.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Thank you, and good morning, everyone. First, I'm grateful for the opportunity and the responsibility that the board has given to me. I'm excited about where we sit today, especially considering the amount of improvement we have seen over the last year, combined with our promising outlook. There's a lot more that we can improve upon, and I'm confident that we can make it happen, as the need for integrated steel making in North America is undeniable. Turning to our quarterly results, our adjusted EBITDA in the second quarter was $286 million, our best quarter in two years. Second quarter shipments were just over 4 million tons, down sequentially from the previous quarter due to the maintenance outages we underwent during the quarter, as well as improved automotive demand, which comes with longer lead times.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We expect to see steel shipment volumes above 4.3 million tons in the third quarter, as the order book remains strong and backlogs are extended. Pricing also continued its steady climb upward. Our average selling price increased by $76 per ton as pricing lags started to materialize, and we sold a richer product mix, thanks to our automotive-heavy order book. This climb will continue into Q3, as we have visibility on pricing on nearly every ton we will ship in the next quarter. Based on this, we expect our average price to increase another $55 per ton in Q3. HRC spot pricing has, of course, played the largest role in our improvements, but the trajectory of the cold rolled coil price, which many of our contracts are linked to, has even further outpaced hot rolled coil prices over the past several months.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

This is another factor illustrating the importance of trade policy, as it has driven our pricing realizations to higher than originally expected levels. As for unit costs, as previously guided, the inventory lag effect from last quarter and our maintenance outages pushed costs up quarter-over-quarter. With that behind us, we should see a $10 per ton reduction in costs into Q3. After two years of negative free cash flow, we finally flipped back to positive in the second quarter. We expect this trend to continue going forward. On top of that, we are now under contract on all of our major property sales, with earnest money in our control in all cases. The bulk of the $400 million proceeds from our property sales are expected to come in the second half of this year.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

With volume, price, and cost all moving in the right direction into next quarter, we felt it prudent to provide an adjusted EBITDA guide with our results this time because of the magnitude of the change quarter-over-quarter. We expect adjusted EBITDA of approximately $575 million in the third quarter, which would be our strongest quarter in three years. With where the curve for HRC stands today, we would expect even further improvement on that figure in the fourth quarter, even with the typical seasonal slowdown we usually see around the holidays. Beyond this, if you ran out the futures curve over the next year, we would expect to hit our leverage target of sub 2.5x by this time next year, as the cash flows generated from both ongoing profit and asset sales will be used to delever over that timeframe.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

These are not based on any extraordinary assumptions, as we see achievable opportunities going into 2027 beyond just commodity pricing. We'll have an opportunity in the coming months to reset a large portion of our fixed price contracts substantially higher, which we estimate will represent a $500 million EBITDA improvement year-over-year. We also see a major improvement coming from Stelco based on where its order book is today, as well as further cost reduction opportunities from AI-based initiatives currently being implemented with our partner, Palantir. On the strategic front, one thing that has become increasingly apparent through the multiple processes that we've run is that prospective counterparties approach discussions with the assumption that Cleveland-Cliffs was under pressure to transact. This includes our processes for HBI and FPT, as well as our ongoing dialogue with POSCO.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We went into these processes with the backdrop of foreign companies paying enticing multiples for U.S. industrial assets. These were opportunistic ventures aimed at unlocking value at higher multiples than where we trade at. We understand the replacement cost associated with these operations, and we are well aware what these assets contribute to Cleveland-Cliffs. So far, the offers that we have received related to these processes have fallen short of our value threshold. On top of that, our HBI has become substantially more valuable for us with the strong order book that we have in place. HBI, used in blast furnaces, juices our iron-making capabilities where we are constrained, and we have been able to push more volume through our mills as a result. This will be evident in our third quarter shipping volumes.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Regarding POSCO specifically, discussions still remain friendly and ongoing, but we don't have a deadline on our side. We continue to have constructive dialogue and believe that there are strategic benefits that could be realized, but valuation and structure are important, and we're not desperate to do anything unless these two factors are met by POSCO and acceptable to us. The United States is the best market in the world, and it's not cheap to play in our sandbox. The story today is very simple. Cleveland-Cliffs is entering the strongest earnings environment that we have seen in years, and we are doing so with a better operating footprint in a domestic steel market that remains supported by trade enforcement and manufacturing investment.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

There are still low-hanging fruit opportunities, such as fixed price contract resets, that can amplify our position even further. We are anxious to pursue this in the coming months. The factors that have delayed our earnings recovery are largely behind us, while the factors that support future earnings remain firmly in place. With that, let's open up the line for questions.

Operator

Thank you. We will now be conducting a question-and-answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star one on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star two to remove your question from the queue. For participants using speaker equipment, it may be necessary to pick up your handset before pressing the star keys. One moment, please, while we poll for your questions. Our first questions come from the line of Carlos De Alba with Morgan Stanley. Please proceed with your questions.

Carlos De Alba
Carlos De Alba
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Yeah, good morning, Lourenco and Celso. Thanks for the opportunity. I wonder if you can maybe give us a little bit more color on the resetting of the non-auto fixed price contract. Any specific products to which this apply, should that come on January 1st, or it will be throughout the year? If you could maybe also share any light on the auto contracts for next year, any expected reset, higher or flat? That would be quite useful. Thank you.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Good morning, Carlos. Regarding the resetting of the non-automotive contract, it's a process that starts in earnest in the second half of this year. It usually goes through November, early December, will be done for the year. You know the numbers. You know the current scenario on pricing and the futures curve and everything. We negotiated last year contracts in the backdrop of a much lower price environment. Without giving any numbers on that, the expectation that these contracts will reset for much higher prices are just a foregone conclusion. No surprise on that. Regarding automotive. Remember that we are in an environment right now that it's clear after a couple of years of changes in the marketplace and the dynamics of the marketplace, including ownership of more direct competitors, that we are the real deal in supplying automotive clients.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

The clients know that, recognize that, and that this time around, there's no more escape valves thanks to the beautiful enforcement of trade policies by the Trump administration. There is no more escape valves in Mexico for transship the steel. There's no more Canada playing at convenience as part of the United States when it's good for Canada, but never when it's good for the United States. All these things changed. Now, or you are here in the United States or you are out. If you are here in the United States, you want to produce cars in the United States, they need to buy from Cleveland-Cliffs. There is no more conversation about mini mills producing automotive steel or going into producing all kinds of automotive steel. This is behind us. There's no more conversations that the other integrated player is at our level. They are not.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We are getting market share from them at will, and, if we want to take all their business, we take all their business. We are in good shape and we are going to play for higher prices. We're going to be more selective, and we are going to reset these numbers higher. That's the bottom line.

Carlos De Alba
Carlos De Alba
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Perfect. Just on cost. We saw the guidance for the third quarter. Any early comments on the fourth quarter expectations for cost? Should we maybe bake in another quarter-on-quarter reduction in the fourth quarter, or it's going to be more flattish? Any comments would be great.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Yeah, we expect further improvements. Our momentum is good and we believe that with higher levels of production and more stable and more optimized schedules at the mills, thanks to our work with Palantir, we are going to continue to bring these costs down.

Carlos De Alba
Carlos De Alba
Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Great. Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Samuel McKinney with KeyBanc Capital Markets. Please proceed with your questions.

Samuel McKinney
Samuel McKinney
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, good morning.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Morning, Samuel.

Samuel McKinney
Samuel McKinney
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Hey, you were very clear last quarter, and you reiterated today that automotive OEMs booking more from Cliffs and those production schedules are tight. Of the 300,000 ton shipment uplift you're looking for in the third quarter, how much of that is from the improved automotive market?

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

I would say half, because that's pretty much what we do every quarter, half automotive, half of the no automotive. As far as light flat rolled carbon steel.

Samuel McKinney
Samuel McKinney
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay. Maybe for Celso, the positive free cash flow this quarter was more than accounted for by the increase in payables at the end of the second quarter versus the end of the first quarter. Can you provide us some more detail around what drove that spike in payables?

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Yeah. Hey, Sam. Payables were largely driven by things like raw materials going up, additional maintenance work and things like that.

Samuel McKinney
Samuel McKinney
Analyst at KeyBanc Capital Markets

Okay, thanks.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Nick Cash with Goldman Sachs. Please proceed with your questions.

Nick Cash
Nick Cash
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Hi, thank you very much. Good morning, guys, and congratulations Celso. I just wanted to touch on Stelco and Canada for a second. You mentioned the $500 million potential uplift opportunity here from pricing improvement, cost, and volumes. You mentioned, I think on last call that Canadian selling price was at a 40% discount to U.S. price. Based on numbers I've seen recently, it looks like that gap has closed and Canadian prices have moved up actually quite a bit. Is there any chance you'd be able to provide some color on what you're seeing in Canadian spot pricing and, I guess, how much of the $500 million potential uplift is based on today's pricing? I guess, the split between pricing and volumes to get to that $500 million. Thank you.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Volume wise, Nick, we're fine. We're not in a much better spot volume wise. We're maxed out at Stelco. We are producing what we have to produce. What happened over there is that the pricing gap has closed. The Canadian government made some moves, insufficient moves, but moves in the right direction. Things are getting better pricing wise over there, particularly for hot rolled steel. We haven't seen yet the same type of impact with the galvanized steel over there. That said, we are very comfortable producing hot band, and we believe that making more hot band to supply the Canadian market is the way to go. If the Canadian market does not understand that galvanized continues to be under pressure and dump the galvanized steel, destroying the market, I have used all the arguments I could have used to explain that to them.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Look, we are going to do what's good for Cliffs and for the Cliffs shareholders. If I need to make any changes in the Canadian footprint, it will be all affecting galvanized and producing more hot rolls. That will have consequence for employment in Canada. We will have a positive financial impact on Stelco and on Cleveland-Cliffs. That's not something that we have decided yet. I'm still watching to see what's going to happen. Our guidance is based on what we're booking out in September.

Nick Cash
Nick Cash
Analyst at Goldman Sachs

That's great. Thanks, Lourenco. I'll pass it on.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Lawson Winder with Bank of America Securities. Please proceed with your questions.

Lawson Winder
Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Thank you, operator, good morning, Lourenco and Celso. Nice to hear from you both. Celso, congratulations on the promotion. If I could ask on the guidance, just looking further out, if I'm understanding or inferring from some comments you made, Celso, the Q3 2026 and 2027 guidance, is it basically assuming the U.S. HRC forward curve for pricing? Would that include for the fixed price contract resets? Just to follow up on that, what assumptions are baked in to unit costs for improvements in Q4 and 2027?

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Hey, Lawson. Thanks for the comments. We felt it prudent to give a more detailed guide this time, just given the magnitude of the improvements that we see. There's nothing crazy being baked in there. Pricing wise, it's largely just the curve. We're assuming the positive benefits that we see from the fixed price contract renewals and things like that. It's all very realistic, and we have visibility into it. We know the cost trajectory. We know where pricing is expected to be. We have other assumptions like coal, energy, and other costs effectively consistent. We have no reason to think otherwise at this point, we feel pretty good about the guide.

Lawson Winder
Analyst at Bank of America Securities

That's very helpful. If I could ask then a follow-up on the Q2 results. With free cash flow, there was a real positive working capital benefit, particularly on accounts payable. Could you provide a little color on what that benefit was about and whether that could be maintained going forward, or would you expect any reversals going forward?

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Yeah. As it relates to working capital, Q2 was a release of around $55 million, and that was driven by reduction in inventory and a slight build in AP offset by a little bit of AR. I think we talked a little bit about, as we mentioned, on the reasons why AP went up. Going forward, working capital for Q3 is likely going to be a slight build as pricing continues to increase. It's a little too early to tell how significant of a build it could be, that's what we see going forward into Q3.

Lawson Winder
Analyst at Bank of America Securities

Okay. That's very helpful. Thank you very much.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Thank you.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Bill Peterson with JPMorgan. Please proceed with your questions.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Analyst at JPMorgan

Hi, good morning, Lourenco and Celso. Also congrats, Celso. Appreciate all the color thus far on the call. I had a question on the U.S. auto market and realizing you're potentially gaining share and so forth, but considering the announcements from some of your customers to reshore, how should we think about your market opportunity in terms of unit volumes in 2027, 2028, and what that means for maybe uplift in terms of your output to capture those increased market size?

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Bill, we have the capacity, we have the technology, and we have the respect of every single client we have. Keep in mind, we got this year, once again, the Supplier of the Year award from General Motors, the only steel producer getting this award this year here in the U.S. We also got the international company, Toyota, giving us the same award. I forgot the exact name of the award, but it's the top award a steel company in a given country can get. That's the recognition we have from these folks. At this point, there's no more conversation who is who. We are number one, period, full stop. We know how to supply automotive. We don't need help from anyone to help us get better. We are good enough by ourselves.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We have the best team to handle the automotive business in the U.S. under the leadership of Dan Gordon. Between Dan Gordon, Mike Hrosik, and myself, everybody knows who is who in the automotive business here in the U.S. That said, we still have one blast furnace in spare at Dearborn, Michigan. I don't need to explain. Dearborn, Michigan, inside the Ford Rouge complex, we are really able to produce automotive steels over there. We have more capacity to supply automotive. The Trump administration knows that. I shared our potential with the Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick. We support the Trump administration moves toward reshoring manufacturing. They are doing the business of the American people, and we're right behind to make sure that as every single move that they make will be backed by Cleveland-Cliffs, and we'll be there for them.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

That's how we work, and that's how we will continue to make money for the shareholders.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Analyst at JPMorgan

I appreciate that comment, Lourenco. Maybe following up on the second part of Lawson's question, just to get a sense of the variables for cost in 2027. Potentially, I'm thinking increased utilization, potentially. It sounds like raw materials, you're not expecting any headwinds. Are there any other inflationary costs to consider? Maybe on the Palantir side, you talked about some improvement this year. Do you have line of sight for any cost improvements from your work with them concerning maybe the next 6-18 months out? Any additional color would be helpful.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Well, the very first thing is some changes in maintenance practices and the move toward higher utilization of our equipment, better and more efficient production planning. All these things that are going on inside the company right now, they are starting to bear fruit, and we will continue to see these things positively impacting our costs. We do have a reline at one of our blast furnaces in Burns Harbor coming next year. We're going to get some efficient gains over there as well. In a much smaller scale, but not less important, we are going to be producing more grain-oriented electrical steels. It's a 25% increase on that plant specifically with the completion of our induction furnaces in the hot strip mill of Butler. These are a few of the things that we're doing in order to continue to grow our throughput.

Bill Peterson
Bill Peterson
Analyst at JPMorgan

Really appreciate the color. Congrats again, Celso, look forward to following the progress.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Thanks, Bill. Appreciate it.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question has come from the line of Nick Giles with B. Riley Securities. Please proceed with your questions.

Nick Giles
Nick Giles
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Thank you, operator. Good morning, LG and Celso. My question was about capacity restarts. LG, you just mentioned Dearborn. What else do you need to see whether, I assume primarily at Dearborn, but elsewhere to expand capacity, then can you just remind us of the volume uplift that could come from any restarts and how you're thinking about capital intensity? Thanks.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Yeah. Look, that plant is a producer of automotive-grade steel. The more automotive moves production to the United States, the more we are going to get closer to bring back Dearborn. The more they replace aluminum with steel, which they are doing in a very consistent way since the competition set themselves on fire and did it again then again in the last several months. The more they continue to do that, the closer we get there. The more they believe that the Trump administration is not going to go back on anything that they are doing so far. There's absolutely no indication that would happen. I would go one step further. No matter who the next President of the United States will be, any Republican or even a Democrat, I don't see these things being undone.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

There's nobody that will come and say, "Oh, you know what? It's a good thing to import steel from China. Let's go ahead and let China go back to their control over the market." President Trump pushed them back, that was in the first mandate. President Biden came and did not change anything, then President Trump came back and made that a lot better with Section 232. Who is going to come back and say, "Let's import steel into this country"? Car manufacturers need to believe that these changes are for real, as much as they believed that the electric vehicle lie was true. If they had applied half of their conviction in electric vehicles to restore production to the United States, Dearborn would be back. Because Dearborn is not back, backlogs are tight for them, and I'll keep them tight.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Once they move in all earnest out of aluminum into steel and backing our proposal of bringing manufacturing back to the U.S., that's basically the proposal of the U.S. government, we're going to have Dearborn back. Until they do that, nope.

Nick Giles
Nick Giles
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

LG, understood. I appreciate those comments. Maybe just as a follow-up. As we think about the Dearborn restart, should we think about it hinging on auto improving further, or could you make a decision to restart that capacity just to increase HRC production, let's say?

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

I thought I was clear. We are comfortable with what we have right now for the situation we're seeing right now. Maybe the clients are not comfortable. They are tight. They are running on tighter schedules than they would like to see. There's an easy solution. They need to give me the conviction that I can bring a blast furnace back. We're talking more than 2 million tons. I need the conviction that they will bring back, and they will stay, and they are not going to go back to Mexico or back to Canada or importing steel or producing cars in South Korea. I hate all these things. I want them to produce cars in the U.S., employing Americans. Then I can employ Americans here in the U.S. as well. It's so simple. How can we have consumption without employment?

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We're not going to have that. They need people to buy the cars. These people need to have jobs. That's what we're discussing here. It's a lot less on one side, decisions by the company, and much more on a macro level. I believe that the U.S. government has shown very clear what's going to happen next. We are ready to go, but we're not going to go until they are ready to go. I don't feel like they are ready to go. They prefer small increments. That's fine with me. We are showing that we're good at that as well. If almost half of my business in flat-rolled steel is automotive, there's another half that's really pretty damn good as well. We are on plate for shipbuilding, we are on electrical steels for the grid, the only producer of grain-oriented electrical steels.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We are on stainless. We are on a lot of things that make a lot of money for us as well. I can go either way, but our footprint is well-designed for automotive. Automotive coming, automotive executing, we are right there for them.

Nick Giles
Nick Giles
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

That's very clear. I really appreciate those comments. My second question was just on debt paydown. Obviously, the outlook is improving, I was wondering if, based on that outlook, kind of what your expectations are for debt paydown in total over the next few quarters, and how much non-operating cash flow the asset sales or any other sources could contribute to that.

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Yeah. I think we've been pretty clear that debt paydown is going to be our number one capital allocation priority, we've sort of laid out how much free cash flow we expect to generate next. The debt reduction will be consistent with free cash flow generation. The asset sales obviously juice that even further. Until we get to our leverage target, we're not going to prioritize any other type of capital allocation. As you know.

Nick Giles
Nick Giles
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Understood

Celso Goncalves
Celso Goncalves
EVP and CFO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We have a balance sheet that we've been very thoughtful about. We've been really proactive on pushing out maturities. We don't have anything maturing until 2029, there's no immediate kind of refi needed at this point. We have a good ABL in place. There's nothing urgent on the balance sheet. It's just a matter of delivering on the results, generating the cash, and paying down the debt and getting to our target.

Nick Giles
Nick Giles
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Understood. Thank you, Celso. Well, guys, plenty of good things to see. Continue. Best of luck.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Nick, just a quick addition to what Celso just said. I usually don't comment on that, but today I have to. The presentation that is loaded in our website following the Q2 results. Every quarter we put a presentation there. I never comment. That presentation is really good and gives a lot of further information on our path to bring back this leverage to a true handle in the next year. I would like to direct, not only you, my friend, but everybody else in the call to take a look on that presentation. There's a lot of work there and a lot of information there that we are making public through the presentation on our path to bring leverage down in an extremely important way, and that will happen the next year or so.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Please spend a little five minutes there just to take a look on that, because you're going to see that we know exactly how to get there and how to use our cash flow to bring back leverage to a two-point something times in the next 12 months.

Nick Giles
Nick Giles
Analyst at B. Riley Securities

Sounds good.

Operator

Thank you. Our next question is coming from the line of Richard Garchitorena with Barclays. Please proceed with your questions.

Richard Garchitorena
Richard Garchitorena
Analyst at Barclays

Great. Good morning, Lourenco. Congratulations, Celso, and thanks for taking my question. I wanted to touch on the commentary on the guidance and expectations for Q4 better than Q3. What's driving that in terms of different buckets? Are you expecting additional price gains, lower costs? What are your expectations on the volumes? We typically see some seasonality in the fourth quarter. Just curious sort of what's driving the incremental improvements.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Yeah. Richard, welcome back to the business. How long have you been out of this steel business? I haven't seen you in a while.

Richard Garchitorena
Richard Garchitorena
Analyst at Barclays

Thank you.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

I assume you are doing something else, Richard.

Richard Garchitorena
Richard Garchitorena
Analyst at Barclays

Well, I was covering the sector. I was actually on the buy side. Yes. I was on the buy side.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Oh, you were in the buy side. Okay.

Richard Garchitorena
Richard Garchitorena
Analyst at Barclays

I mean.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Welcome back to the sell side. Anyway.

Richard Garchitorena
Richard Garchitorena
Analyst at Barclays

Thank you.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Look, because of the way we sell steel, we have a good visibility into volumes. With sometimes a two-month lag, we know what price we're going to be executing, and we also know the volumes and how we're selling to our clients. That's why we have conviction on Q4 as well as we have conviction the number that we gave for Q3. Of course, chances are that we're going to get to a number that will be $5 million more, and we don't consider that a beat. If you do $5 million less, we are not going to expect you guys to say that we missed our own guidance. We are guiding to a number because we want to give you what we have in terms of what we see right now. We have a lot of conviction what we are seeing for Q3.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

As far as Q4, we already baked in the fact that around Thanksgiving week, we're going to have less shipments. We also baked in the last week of the year or the last 10 days of the year when business shuts down. All these things are taken into consideration. We expect that these things will happen. We are seeing the appetite of the car manufacturers growing, like I said, growing slowly and probably, with a lot more Not probably, with a lot more potential if they apply the conviction to bring business to the United States that they did before when they were convincing themselves that everybody in the United States would buy electric vehicle.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

If they apply half of the conviction that they had, we're going to be in a position that we can really bring Dearborn back and get it done with a much higher volume, and you can produce a lot more cars in the U.S. and sell more made-in-USA. cars to the American consumer. Q4 is basically what we're seeing right now. It's good. We believe that we're going to get what we said we will.

Richard Garchitorena
Richard Garchitorena
Analyst at Barclays

Okay. No, that's great and great to hear. Maybe just to touch on 2027, I know you talked about non-auto fixed contracts opportunity renewing in 2027. How should we think about that in terms of where they were originally signed? What's the price embedded in your $500 million? Is that current pricing that we're seeing? Just in terms of how we should see that play out through next year, is that gonna be a stairstep as the contracts get renewed, or should we see it spread out through 2027? Thank you.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Very first thing, the pricing levels that were the prevailing prices, underlying prices during the time that Michael Cooney and Michael Hrosik were renewing our contracts with our clients last year, were in the $800 level, maybe less. Today, they are in the $1,150 level or maybe more. The starting point of negotiation has moved up a lot. The clients know at this point that there's no chance that they can go ahead and harass us with imported steel. "Oh, if you don't buy from me, I'm going to import." Okay, be my guest. Go import. Go get the vessel through the Strait of Hormuz, for example, or bring it from Ukraine. It's not gonna happen. We are not going to use that to make our clients less profitable.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Actually, I have a full conviction based on my 45 years of experience in this business that higher prices benefit everybody, not just the mills, but the service centers, the OEMs, everybody. We just can't keep a business alive by forcing that business to produce and sell the product below cost. That's a recipe for disaster. On the other hand, we are not greedy. We're just realistic. We need to make a return on investment that we make in order to supply these clients and keep them in good health, financial health, as well as our own financial health. That's what we expect this negotiation to be more of a mature negotiation between business that understand the codependence and understand that there's no such way that they can take money out of my pocket and be happy, and we're gonna be happy as well.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

We're gonna be happy when we are happy because we're making money, and we'll also be happy because they are happy because they are making money. That's the beautiful backdrop that we're gonna be negotiating with.

Richard Garchitorena
Richard Garchitorena
Analyst at Barclays

Great. Thank you, glad to be back and look forward to working with you.

Lourenco Goncalves
Lourenco Goncalves
Chairman and CEO at Cleveland-Cliffs

Welcome back, Richard.

Operator

Thank you so much, ladies and gentlemen. This does now conclude the question-and-answer session. With that, I would like to bring the call to a close. We appreciate your participation. You may disconnect your lines at this time, and enjoy the rest of your day.

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