Cleveland Cliff offers to buy USS

[Guest]

Add STELCO, with partners, to the list of potential buyers of US Steel.

https://www.recyclingtoday.com/news/ste ... 23-canada/

[Guest]

Esmark has dropped their bid. So that leaves just Cleveland Cliffs and may Arcelor Mittal. Anyone else? Why AM would want blast furnaces and iron ore when they just sold them off in the US is interesting.

[Guest]

Steel dynamics rolls rails, bars, tubing, h beams I beams etc. although small compared to past production from the big name mills they found a way to produce those products at a profit.

[Guest]

I actually imagine it will be the steel consumers (automakers mostly) who will raise the biggest objections. So too might the Department of Defense - pretty sure all steel used on vehicles and vessels must be US sourced with IIRC exceptions for Canadian and Mexican steel. The Recovery Act recently signed also required US made steel.

That being said - NUCOR is probably now capable of making many of these products in EAF's. We'll see who complains.

[William Lafferty]

i doubt if the federal goverment will allow cliffs to buy uss as it would violate anti trust laws. it will all blow over and uss will carry on by its self

I disagree. Regulators aimed at United States Steel in 1911 since it was, indeed, an immense presence in the domestic steel industry, but what is hardly ever mentioned is the government lost that case in 1920. If USS is sold to equity firms, its pieces will almost certainly be sold off, possibly to foreign owners further reducing the presence of an American steel producer domestically or to another American producer who could use the sale to eliminate a competitor. If it is sold outright to a foreign operator, the same scenario could unfold. To be honest, though, I doubt a foreign steel firm would be interested in the assets of USS. Arcelor-Mittal soured on its American investment. I think the government is more interested maintaining a strong American-controlled steel producer in a market absolutely dominated by China than whatever anti-trust concerns it may have, and the current administration would probably be sympathetic to the United Steel Workers' stance on such an amalgamation of USS and Cleveland Cliffs. Strictly speaking, Nucor is probably the only party that would object on anti-trust grounds since, based on 2022 production figures, a combined USS-CC would have production capability about 30% more than Nucor (around 20 million tons vs 31 million tons), although their respective production operations are different modes.

[guest]

I cannot give you exact figures, but ASC already hauls a considerable amount of the taconite to USS mills. The Speer is the only GLF boat dedicated to USS hauls. In fact, this year GLF boats are making runs to Cliff plants.

[guest]

i doubt if the federal goverment will allow cliffs to buy uss as it would violate anti trust laws. it will all blow over and uss will carry on by its self

[Guest]

What’s going to happen to the ships owned by key lakes/Great Lakes fleet that were once owned by uss when uss is sold? They haul the majority of ore for uss to Gary and conneaut. If someone else buys uss then they might contract another shipping company such as interlake or asc to haul their ore.

The ships are not owned by Key Lakes / Great Lakes Fleet, they are only Managed by Key Lakes. GLF is a subsidiary of CN and are free to carry cargo for whomever they contract to. The relationship with USS though is strong and thus the reason they primarily service their mills.

[Mn bob]

What’s going to happen to the ships owned by key lakes/Great Lakes fleet that were once owned by uss when uss is sold? They haul the majority of ore for uss to Gary and conneaut. If someone else buys uss then they might contract another shipping company such as interlake or asc to haul their ore.

[Jared]

Hannah Mining Company had no part in Cleveland-Cliffs, they were serious competitors. Mather family started Cleveland-Cliffs by merging Cleveland Iron Mining Company with Iron Cliffs Mining Co. in 1891 and never looked back.

But then Mather forms his own company with Pickands and competes against it? I have had a hard time understanding the companies at the turn of the century as they were in one way or another related to US Steel but yet mostly owned by John Rockefeller's shell companies. The two large independent carriers of Hanna, Hawgood, and Gilchrist were gone by the end of WW1 when they were absorbed by Interlake, Pittsburgh, US Steel, Columbia, Bethlehem, and Cliffs which were all subsidiaries of US Steel.

Cliffs was never a subsidiary of US Steel and along with Interlake has a long heritage of Great Lakes shipping that lives on today. A majority of what Interlake hauls now is serving Cliffs contracts from ore dock to mill

So I took a look at the companies I mentioned through a brief look through of Vein of Iron and the Tin Stackers and see that Mather sat on the board for both his fleet and Cliffs. Cliffs used the Bessemer Process through Carnegie Steel (U.S. Steel). So Cliffs was in a sense controlled by US Steel until it was broken up by the antitrust movement in 1911. With forced competition, there were several other "independent" steel makers.

[Guest]

John D. Rockefeller was not involved in the merger in February 1901 of Andrew Carnegie's Federal Steel, John W. Gates' American Steel and Wire, National Steel (no relation to the later National Steel Corporation of 1929), J. P. Morgan's National Tube and several other companies - that created US Steel. John D. Rockefeller's Lake Superior Consolidated Mining Company and Bessemer fleet were only brought into the US Steel fold a month later after J. P. Morgan and judge Elbert H. Gary were convinced that it would be in their best interest to do so. (J. P. Morgan thought it repugnant to do business with Rockefeller.) The purchase price of Rockefeller's mines and Bessemer fleet was $90 million.

Rockefeller came into the iron ore mine business in 1890 when he lent money to the Merritt brothers for the development of mines on the Mesabi Range. When a business panic occurred in 1893, the Merritt brothers went bankrupt, and the mines on the Mesabi Range owned by the Merritt's became John. D. Rockefeller's.

In 1978, Telescope magazine (GLMI) did a two part article on the Bessemer fleet and went into detail on the business relationship between Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller.

March/April 1978: https://images.maritimehistoryofthegrea ... 27231T.PDF

May/June 1978: https://images.maritimehistoryofthegrea ... 27241T.PDF

Prepare for a headache, because trying to get your head around the various mergers is confusing to say the least. I've been hoping for decades that someone would write a clear and concise book on the early years of the United States steel industry - especially the era from 1890-1930.

[William Lafferty]

But then Mather forms his own company with Pickands and competes against it? I have had a hard time understanding the companies at the turn of the century as they were in one way or another related to US Steel but yet mostly owned by John Rockefeller's shell companies. The two large independent carriers of Hanna, Hawgood, and Gilchrist were gone by the end of WW1 when they were absorbed by Interlake, Pittsburgh, US Steel, Columbia, Bethlehem, and Cliffs which were all subsidiaries of US Steel.

Mather by that time had access to considerable capital by marriage to the daughter of Amasa Stone, one of the great railroad titans and Cleveland industrialist. Jay C. Morse, a former Cleveland Iron Mining Company executive and James Pickands, Marquette coal and pig iron dealer, formed a partnership in 1867 at Marquette as coal and pig iron dealers, and not in any direct competition with Cleveland Iron. Mather became the partnership's agent in ore selling when the partnership purchased two small iron mines. The only Rockefeller connection among all these was Amasa Stone whose bank lent Rockefeller considerable capital to get Standard Oil off the ground, but that was in the 1870s and had nothing to do with ore or steel. As I state below, United States Steel, formed in 1901, had nothing to do with the iterations of Hanna; Pickands, Mather; or, for that matter, Oglebay Norton. Hanna began as vessel agents and managers in the 1870s, although two of the fleets it managed, Mutual and Menominee, would be bought by USS in 1901. It managed the fleet of the Republic Iron Company in the early days and when M. A. Hanna & Company, then also owning mines, merged with Weirton Steel Company in 1929 to form National Steel Corporation, the new firm absorbed Hanna's Calumet Transportation Company vessels as had Bethlehem when it absorbed the various fleets Hanna operated on its behalf the previous year. Pickands, Mather also managed vessels on behalf of others, most notably Lackawanna Steel Company which would be merged with Bethlehem in 1922, and purchased the Gilchrist castoffs when it formed Interlake in 1913. Oglebay Norton acquired the Richardson interests and founded the Columbia Steamship Company in 1921. Gilchrist collapsed because of woeful mismanagement and Hawgood because of over extension that led to fiscal subterfuge. None of these entities had anything to do with United States Steel.

[Guest]

Wonder if Esmark would join forces with Cliffs to allay anti-trust concerns. Esmark gets the mines and the EAF's, maybe Pittsburgh steel operations. Cliffs gets Gary and Zug Island.

Just a thought.

[ExSailor51]

Just a sign of the times, unfortunately. When I started sailing in '69 USS was king of the industrial hill. They had 40 straight deckers and 13 self unloaders,

[Jon Paul]

Hannah Mining Company had no part in Cleveland-Cliffs, they were serious competitors. Mather family started Cleveland-Cliffs by merging Cleveland Iron Mining Company with Iron Cliffs Mining Co. in 1891 and never looked back.

But then Mather forms his own company with Pickands and competes against it? I have had a hard time understanding the companies at the turn of the century as they were in one way or another related to US Steel but yet mostly owned by John Rockefeller's shell companies. The two large independent carriers of Hanna, Hawgood, and Gilchrist were gone by the end of WW1 when they were absorbed by Interlake, Pittsburgh, US Steel, Columbia, Bethlehem, and Cliffs which were all subsidiaries of US Steel.

Cliffs was never a subsidiary of US Steel and along with Interlake has a long heritage of Great Lakes shipping that lives on today. A majority of what Interlake hauls now is serving Cliffs contracts from ore dock to mill

[Denny]

Not sure if this would help but, I think there’s been two books at least written on the history of the once Pittsburgh fleet of USS? One is by Al Miller titled Tin Stackers or at least something like that, while the other was from Greenwood years ago. Not sure if there is anything written or mentioned on the history of USS the company or not? Just my suggestion and idea on this subject is all.

[Jared]

Hannah Mining Company had no part in Cleveland-Cliffs, they were serious competitors. Mather family started Cleveland-Cliffs by merging Cleveland Iron Mining Company with Iron Cliffs Mining Co. in 1891 and never looked back.

But then Mather forms his own company with Pickands and competes against it? I have had a hard time understanding the companies at the turn of the century as they were in one way or another related to US Steel but yet mostly owned by John Rockefeller's shell companies. The two large independent carriers of Hanna, Hawgood, and Gilchrist were gone by the end of WW1 when they were absorbed by Interlake, Pittsburgh, US Steel, Columbia, Bethlehem, and Cliffs which were all subsidiaries of US Steel.

[guest]

The M. A. Hanna Co. its mines & boats were the pride of Cleveland. They had lots of competition in town, at one time, the Pittsburg Steamship Company, division of USS. Then there were Columbia aka Oglebay Norton, Cleveland Cliffs, Pickens Mather, Wilson Marine and Steinbrenner, S & E Shipping. Whom did I miss?
They were all assisted at times by the Great Lakes Towing Company, still headquartered in Cleveland.
M. A. Hanna shouldn't be confused with Hannah Waterways, a Chicago area towing company.

[Guest]

I'm surprised Cliff's wants all of USS because of anti-trust and assuming even more legacy liabilities than they already have from purchasing other steel companies.

IIRC USS is facing lawsuits from it's coke batteries in the Pittsburgh area. Imagine asbestos litigation and shut down plant cleanups too.

[clarkjol]

Hannah Mining Company had no part in Cleveland-Cliffs, they were serious competitors. Mather family started Cleveland-Cliffs by merging Cleveland Iron Mining Company with Iron Cliffs Mining Co. in 1891 and never looked back.