Mr. Goncalves added: “Cleveland-Cliffs is, by a very large margin, the largest steel supplier of the automotive sector in the United States. Through our massive utilization of both HBI in our blast furnaces and prime scrap in our BOF’s, we are now able to stretch hot metal, reduce coke rate, and reduce CO2 emissions to a new international benchmark level for steel companies with product mix similar to ours. That’s particularly relevant when our clients in the automotive sector compare our emissions performance against their other major steel suppliers in countries like Japan, South Korea, France, Austria, Germany, Belgium and a few others. Said another way, through operational changes we have already implemented and that do not depend on breakthrough technologies or massive investment, Cleveland-Cliffs is setting a new world benchmark in CO2 emissions for steel suppliers of higher quality steels to the automotive sector.”

Mr. Goncalves concluded: "With demand on the rebound, particularly in automotive, 2022 is set to be another phenomenal year for profitability at Cleveland-Cliffs. Based on our recently renewed contracts, we are now selling the vast majority of our fixed-price contractual volumes at substantially higher selling prices. Even at the steel futures curve as of today, we would expect to see higher average selling prices for our steel in 2022 than in 2021. As we look forward to delivering another stellar year in 2022 and with our limited needs for capex, we are now comfortable to implement shareholder-focused actions ahead of our original expectations.”