Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor steel plant

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Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor steel plant, also known as Burns Harbor, ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor steel plant (predecessor), ArcelorMittal - Bethlehem Steel, is a steel plant in Burns Harbor, Indiana, United States that operates blast furnace (BF) and basic oxygen furnace (BOF) technology.

Location

The map below shows the exact location of the plant in Burns Harbor, Indiana, United States:

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• Location: 250 W. U.S. Highway 12, Burns Harbor, IN 46304-9745, United States
• Coordinates (WGS 84): 41.631221, -87.143846 (exact)

Background

The Burns Harbor steel plant was built by the Bethlehem Steel group and began operating in 1964 as one of the largest integrated steel plants in the United States. It relied on the Port of Indiana to import raw materials. In 2003, Bethlehem Steel was bought by ISG for $1.5 billion in 2003. In 2007, ArcelorMittal acquired ISG (and the plant) for $4.5 billion. The facility was then bought in 2020 by Cleveland Cliffs in a $1.4 billion deal with ArcelorMittal.

Environmental Compliance

Burns Harbor has had a long track record of environmental damage. During construction, Bethlehem Steel leveled several ecologically important sand dunes conservationists were attempting to protect (which later became the Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore).

In 2018, the facility was named the "largest source of industrial lead pollution" in the country after emitting nearly 18,000 pounds of lead and 173,000 pounds of benzene in 2016.

In August 2019, the facility had to use Lake Michigan water for its blast furnace gas air scrubbers after a pump failure in the plant's blast furnace water recycling system. Since the pumps were not functioning, the facility ended up discharging many more millions of gallons of untreatable water which flowed to the East Arm of the Little Calumet River. The water contained cyanide and ammonia-nitrogen which exceeded its NPDES permit limit; an estimated 3,000 fish died in the Little Calumet River due to this incident, and nearby beaches and a drinking water intake facility had to be closed. The blast furnace pumps stopped operating for several days. It is unclear if the steel plant was fined for this breach.

In 2020, the Environmental Law and Policy Center found that Burns Harbor had violated its Clean Water Act permit over a hundred times in the past four years and filed a lean Water Act enforcement lawsuit against the facility.

In December 2020, state inspectors discovered that the plant had violated several environmental regulations by inaccurately self-monitoring their data, including storing their effluent samples at non-definitive temperatures that could change sample testing results.

Worker Safety

In July 2020, an explosion damaged one of the blast furnaces at Cleveland-Cliffs Burns Harbor steel plant (formerly ArcelorMittal Burns Harbor), and sent molten material out of the plant building, before setting it ablaze. No employees were killed or injured in the explosion. A video posted to social media showed that "the explosion at Blast Furnace D showered the mill with the shrapnel of large chunks of burning hot white refractory, the interior lining that protects the blast furnace shell from the super-heated temperatures within during the steelmaking process, suggesting that significant damage occurred."

In November 2021 there was another explosion at the slag pit of the plant. Nobody was injured.

Ownership Tree

This ownership tree is part of the Global Energy Ownership Tracker, a project of Global Energy Monitor.

Plant Details

Table 1: General Plant Details

Start date	Workforce size
1964	4039

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	sheet, hot rolled, cold rolled, coated, slab	automotive, building and infrastructure, energy, steel packaging, tools and machinery, transport	2022	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	5001	5001

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	4960	4960

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

Sinter	Coke
2800	1877

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

Year	BOF production	Total (all routes)
2019	4200	4200
2020	3600	3600
2021	3364	3364
2022	3626	3626
2023	4100	4100

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

Year	BF production	Total (all routes)
2019	3781	3781
2020	3584	3584
2021	3636	3636
2022	3300	3300
2023	4000	4000

Unit Details

Table 9: Blast Furnace Details

Unit name	Status	Start date	Current size	Current capacity (ttpa)	Decarbonization technology	Most recent relining
BF C	operating	1972	2645.0	2480	In 2020 funded design for a system to capture 50 to 70% of the CO2 emissions. Recently completed its first phase of research in carbon capture at the plan and is requesting more government funding to support further advancements.	2007-05
BF D	operating	1969	2645.0	2480	*** Jan 2025 update *** - No updates on whether the FEED was conducted. The last news is from Dec 7, 2022. The Company’s Burns Harbor project aims to capture up to 2.8 million tons of CO2 per year from blast furnace gas with a net carbon capture efficiency of at least 95%. See: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20221207005491/en In 2020 funded design for a system to capture 50 to 70% of the CO2 emissions. Recently completed its first phase of research in carbon capture at the plan and is requesting more government funding to support further advancements.	2008

Table 10: Basic Oxygen Furnace Details

Unit name	Status	Start date	Current capacity (ttpa)	Current size
unknown BOF (1)	operating	1969	1667	255.0 m3
unknown BOF (2)	operating	1969	1667	255.0 m3
unknown BOF (3)	operating	1969	1667	–

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