Cleveland-Cliffs Indiana Harbor
Large load · 3210 WATLING STREET, East Chicago, IN
Indiana Harbor in East Chicago, Indiana, is one of the largest integrated steel complexes in North America, formerly ArcelorMittal's and now owned by Cleveland-Cliffs. It makes iron in blast furnaces and steel in basic oxygen furnaces, then hot- and cold-rolls and galvanizes flat products for automotive, appliance and pipe customers. Much of its electricity is generated on site from blast furnace gas. No public source gives the complex's grid demand or its contract with the local utility.
Overview
Cleveland-Cliffs lists three blast furnaces at Indiana Harbor, with one operating, alongside four basic oxygen furnaces, ladle metallurgy and vacuum degassing, three continuous casters, an 80-inch hot-strip mill, a five-stand tandem mill, annealing, a temper mill and one hot-dip galvanizing line. Its recycling plant is listed as idle. Products include advanced high-strength steel, API pipe skelp, motor laminations and automotive exposed grades, and the complex is a main coil supplier to Cliffs' New Carlisle finishing plant.
Profile
- Power from blast furnace gas
- Before 2012, about 22 percent of the blast furnace gas from the No. 7 furnace, the largest in the United States, was flared. With a $31.6 million DOE cost-share award, the then-owner ArcelorMittal built the 504 Boiler to burn that gas and cogenerate steam and electricity. DOE credited the project with about 38 MW of generation, roughly 333,000 MWh a year, used on site. Self-generation of this kind lowers the plant's net draw from the grid, but the complex's total load and grid purchases are not public.
- No. 7 furnace outages
- Cliffs took the No. 7 blast furnace down for a 45-day partial reline beginning in September 2021, and restarted it after an outage in late 2022. Outages at the iron-making end change how much blast furnace gas is available for on-site power and steam.
- Cliffs in the NIPSCO Industrial Group
- Cleveland-Cliffs Steel LLC is a member of the NIPSCO Industrial Group, which intervenes in Northern Indiana Public Service Company's fuel-cost and rate proceedings at the Indiana Utility Regulatory Commission. The filings name the company rather than individual plants, so they do not say how much of the group's load is at Indiana Harbor.
Facility
- Activity
- Integrated steelmaking of flat products
- Industry
- Manufacturing
- Site type
- Facility
- Operating status
- Operating
Related records
Timeline
- Jun 25, 2021
- Cliffs schedules a 45-day partial reline of the No. 7 blast furnace from September 1, 2021.
Cliffs Slates 45-Day Outage for Partial Reline of IH7 Blast Furnace - Steel Market Update
- Dec 2, 2022
- Cliffs restarts the No. 7 blast furnace after an outage.
Restart of Indiana Harbor No7 Blast Furnace Proceeding: Cliffs - Steel Market Update