A Butler steel mill is getting millions of dollars to expand production of a material that’s critical to the nation’s electrical grid.
“It’s about the future of America. We are here today to celebrate a strong workforce. Making a strong product that’s going to keep the power flowing,” U.S. Representative Mike Kelly (R-PA) said.
Cleveland Cliffs’ mission right now is to help strengthen our nation’s electrical grid.
“Lorenzo and this plant is the only one that hung on there,” U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright said.
It’s now the only domestic producer of a certain type of steel that’s used to build transformers.
“The most critical ingredient in a transformer is grain-oriented electrical steel (GOES). We need to rapidly increase our production of GOES, and so we’re partnering with the only domestic GOES producer to more rapidly expand than they might otherwise have done,” Wright said.
To enable expansion Cleveland-Cliffs’ invested $200 million dollars in Butler Works.
With an additional $75 million from the U.S. Department of Energy under the Trump Administration.
“We’re co-funding with Cliffs the installation of an induction heater that’ll just have more precise heating so it can heat the steel to the exact temperature it needs to be with the same size facility so it can get more GOES steel production,” Wright said.
The investment allows the facility to increase GOES production by 25%.
The expansion project is expected to be complete in 2028.
“Without this mill, without this product, America starts to fail. The world cannot afford America to fail,” Kelly said.
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