[ferro-alloys.com]Cleveland-Cliffs will resume construction of its hot-briquetted iron plant in Toledo, Ohio, and accelerate the restart of its Tilden mining operations in Michigan earlier than originally planned after pausing activities as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, the company said June 9.

After pausing construction of the Toledo HBI plant on March 20, the company has now begun the process of re-mobilizing the workforce to complete the project, Cleveland-based iron ore miner and steelmaker said in a statement.

"Due to mandatory social distancing and other newly implemented safety related measures limiting the number of workers allowed to be present simultaneously on the job, construction is now expected to be completed in the fourth quarter of this year," Cliff said.

Cliffs, which first announced construction of the project in June 2017, said before the stoppage it was on schedule to start up the new HBI plant in June 2020, with expectations of hitting nameplate capacity of 1.9 million mt of HBI in 2021.

The Tilden mine, which primarily supplies Cliff's AK Steel facilities in Middletown, Ohio, and Dearborn, Michigan, is scheduled to be restarted later this month after pausing operations in mid-April, Cliffs said. Previously the company said it expected to restart the operations at Tilden in July.

The earlier restart of Tilden comes in response to a faster improvement in steel demand from AK Steel's clients than initially anticipated, particularly in the automotive sector, Cliffs said. Cliffs closed on its acquisition of AK Steel on March 13.

"The demand for our steel, iron ore, and metallics products has recovered dramatically over the past month, and in light of this, we are restarting Toledo and Tilden sooner than we originally expected," Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said. "We suspended these operations in a way that allowed us to restart as easily and efficiently as possible, and that is what we will do. Our footprint is well situated to capitalize on the rapidly increasing demand from the automotive sector, which is occurring faster than our most aggressive expectations."

(S&P Global Platts)

• [Editor:王可]