📰⚡ HRC at $1,065, U.S. Steel's $1.9B DRI Plant & Cliffs Deploys Palantir AI | Steel Newsletter 5/1/26

Cliffs Scales AI with Palantir for Integrated Steelmaking Cleveland‑Cliffs is integrating Palantir’s enterprise AI platform into its core production‑planning processes to manage the extraordinary complexity of integrated steelmaking, where raw‑material inputs, energy use, and equipment states must align precisely. The system pulls in real‑time data from across facilities, enabling predictive modeling that anticipates supply bottlenecks, ladle availability, or hot‑metal flow issues before they disrupt blast furnaces, rolling mills, and finishing lines, and it aims to shift from manual Excel‑based planning to AI‑assisted scheduling that boosts throughput and cuts inefficiencies in high‑volume sheet‑steel output for automotive customers.

U.S. Steel Announces $1.9B DRI Plant at Big River Steel
U.S. Steel, now under Nippon Steel, plans a $1.9 billion investment to build a new direct-reduced iron (DRI) facility at Big River Steel Works in Osceola, Arkansas. This first-of-its-kind U.S. project integrates iron ore from the company's Minnesota operations directly into steel production, boosting efficiency for the site's four electric arc furnaces (EAFs) and eliminating DRI shipping needs.

ITC Keeps Duties in Place on Non-Oriented Electrical Steel
The U.S. International Trade Commission (USITC) voted to keep anti-dumping (AD) and countervailing (CVD) duties in place on non-oriented electrical steel (NOES) from China, Germany, Japan, South Korea, Sweden, and Taiwan after its five-year sunset review. The decision means the existing trade orders will continue, preserving protections for domestic producers against potentially injurious imports.