Cleveland-Cliffs Inc

NYSE:CLF

Earnings Call Transcript 2018-Q1

[Operator]

Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Mariana, and I am your conference facilitator today. I would like to welcome everyone to Cleveland-Cliffs’ 2018 First Quarter Conference Call. All lines have been placed on mute to prevent any background noise. After the speakers’ remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session.

The Company reminds you that certain comments made on today’s call will include predictive statements that are intended to be made as forward-looking within the Safe Harbor protections of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Although, the Company believes that its forward-looking statements are based on reasonable assumptions, such statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially.

Important factors that could cause results to differ materially are set forth in reports on Forms 10-K and 10-Q and news releases filed within the SEC, which are available on the Company website. Today’s conference call is also available and being broadcast at cleveland-cliffs.com. http//:clevelandcliffs.com

At the conclusion of the call, it will be archived on the website and available for replay. The Company will also discuss results excluding certain special items. Reconciliation for Regulation G purposes can be found in the earnings release, which was published this morning.

At this time, I would like to introduce Tim Flanagan, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer.

[Tim Flanagan, EVP and CFO]

Thanks, Mariana, and thanks to everyone joining us this morning. I’ll kick it off today with the financial review of the first quarter and a discussion of what we expect to see for the remainder of the year.

Our Q1 total company adjusted EBITDA of $12 million was a direct consequence of an outstanding $77 million adjusted EBITDA performance from our core business USIO, offset by the negative impact of the closure-related charges recorded at APIO. USIO's phenomenal results were driven by stronger than expected selling prices and sales volumes as well as better than expected cost performance.

This outcome was achieved in the face of an always seasonally light quarter for shipment exacerbated by the accounting change that further pronounced this seasonality. This is especially remarkable considering that we only recorded about half the sales volume this quarter compared to last year after fracturing in the lower carryover sales and the impact of the new revenue recognition standard that we adopted.

That said, our sales of 1.6 million long tons of pellet did beat our previous expectation, mainly because our customers low pellet inventories and favorable shipping conditions allowed to deliver a healthy amount of vessel shipments at the end of March. This demand will carry over in the next quarter with shipping likely to pick up drastically to about 5.5 million long tons well ahead of what is typical for the second quarter.

Given this strong demand, we've increased our full-year sales volume expectation to 20.5 million long tons. To do so, we will be delivering some of the inventory we built at the end of last year. In addition, cash cost decreased 2% from last year's comparable quarter to $57 per long ton. This came in slightly better than our full year guidance range primarily due to our standard cost methodologies outsized impact on DD&A per ton in the lower volume quarter.

Through the balance of the year, we continue to expect cash costs in the range of $58 to $63 per long ton. Our pellet price realization of $105 per long ton represented a 32% improvement over the prior year. This demand also came in ahead of our previous guidance, largely due to the increase in hot rolled steel pricing and its impact on the value of some of the unconsumed pellet inventory.

With the sizable lift in HRC prices since our last earnings report and a more favorable customer mix than originally expected, our realizations are quite a boost in the first quarter. Year-to-date averages for the relevant commodity prices are $770 per short ton for HRC, which I'll note is much lower than today's price, $73 per metric ton per IODEX and $58 per metric ton for the Atlantic pellet premium.

Assuming these averages would carry forward for the rest of the year, our full year USIO revenue realization would be approximately a $102 to $107 per long ton. Alternatively, if we adopted reference, the HRC price, the IODEX and the Atlantic pellet premium as reported at yesterday's close then our USIO revenue realization will be $1 to $2 higher on both end of that range. As we noted in the past, these figures do not reflect our internal view on pricing and therefore should not be considered with guidance.

Now moving onto our Asia-Pacific iron ore segment. APIOs adjusted EBITDA of negative $14 million was primarily a consequence of a large number of accounting adjustments triggered by our decision to move to permanent closure of the mine. Earlier this month, we announced that we are committed to a course of action expected to lead to closure by June 30th of this year. This decision was based on the economic profiles of the mine, both from mine cost of production standpoint and the expected price realizations of the ore resources remaining in the ground.

Increased strip ratios and the haulers distances as well as reduced production levels drove up cost rates for ongoing operations, negatively impacting mining, haulage and administrative expense rates. On top of this, we recorded 22 million in LCM adjustments on inventory that we still expect to sell as well as 2 million in unfavorable ARO adjustments. These two particular items contributed to the negative adjustment EBITDA performance in the quarter.

In addition, we recorded 19 million in impairments on inventory for lower-grade iron ore products and supplies, 3 million in fixed asset impairment and 2 million in severance cost. Due to the nature of these final three items, they were excluded from our adjusted EBITDA calculation consistent with past practice.

As noted in our 8-K filed two weeks ago, we expect cash and non-cash accounting charges related to the closure of a $140 to $170 million, including contract terminations, impairments, write-offs and demobilization costs. Approximately $50 million of these charges were already taken in the first quarter thus the expected future range will be reduced by that amount. We do expect these future charges to be shown under discontinued operations within our P&L in future results.

On the top of the closure cost, the dollar amount assumption of our net overall cash obligations has not changed materially since we last spoke three months ago in our year-end conference call. Last quarter, we gave the assumptions that after asset sales and other mitigation strategies, we would estimate about $80 million in cash obligations, this remains the case. The range of 120 to $140 million of cash obligations reported in our 8-K disclosure was not a net figure, as it did not include the expected offsetting proceeds from the sale of assets and those other mitigation strategies.

We would expect the majority of the net cash obligations to be settled within two years with about 65% to 75% of the total net amount coming this year. I will wrap up my remarks on the top of the capital expenditures. We spent $71 million in the first quarter, 57 million of which related to the HBI Project. As we progressed with the civil works and the foundation construction, we have slightly refined our view on the cadence of overall spend.

The overall project budget and expected completion time in mid-2020 has not changed, but we've lowered our expected outflow this year to $225 million down from our previous assumption from $250 million. This is attributable to the further scope as we progress with the bit packages. And finally, our 2018 guidance for capital spending on sustaining capital and the Northshore upgrades remain unchanged.

With that, I will pass it over to Lourenco for his remarks. Lourenco?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Thank you, Tim, and thanks to everyone for joining us this morning. Let me start my remarks saying that Cleveland-Cliffs has a lot to be excited about this year. We closed the first quarter with a revenue realization in our U.S iron ore business of $105 per long ton. Our best reported selling price since I started with Cliffs in August of 2014. When you layer in our costs of $57 per long ton, our USIO EBITDA margin was 46% also by far our best quarterly performance since our three-year transformation began. And remember when I started here on August 7, 2014, seaborne iron ore prices were $96 per metric ton.

In my opening quarter, our pellet sold for $101 per long ton with an EBITDA margin of 36%. Now in the most recent quarter, seaborne iron ore prices were more than $22 lower at $74 per metric ton. And yet, we are selling pellets at higher prices and generating a stronger EBITDA margins. Over the past three years, we have planted the seeds to generate enormous amount of free cash flow and to expand our business for the future. We have transformed this company into one that's now able to take full advantage of our strength within the Great Lakes markets, including high barriers to entry, the quality of our pellets, our technical expertise, and last but not least contracts to sell pellets a lot more favorable to Cliffs.

Our sales contracts are influenced by the things that truly matter, such as the resilience of the domestic steel market, the scarcity of pellets worldwide, and the growing appetite for high value in used iron ore in China. Why are these things that truly matters were not recognized by almost anyone? Three years ago, these were the things we adopted as the base for the Cliffs turnaround, and are at the core of the strategy, we have implemented in our company. During the quarter, we saw a healthy steel demand in several sectors including automotive, construction, machinery and equipment, and energy.

The U.S. is the largest importer of steel in the world and any restrictions on the steel imports should lead to a stronger demand for domestic-produced steel and improved the steel pricing. Higher steel prices have clearly benefited Cliffs from a pellet price realization standpoint given that the HRC domestic price is a metric used in our contracts. We are also seeing a worldwide scarcity of pellets. The global pellet market is a small with high barriers to enter. At the same time, demands for pellets continuous to increase even in China. Recent work stoppage at Rio Tinto-owned IOC, a Canadian company supplying pellets to Europe is adding further tightness to the seaborne pellet markets.

All this development supports our robust Atlantic pellet premium, which is another metric we produced in our contracts. This dynamics have increased the volume demand for pellets from the blast furnaces we serve in the Great Lakes. In the last week of March, our customers were eager for us to deliver pellets to them, the second we could, is starting a much needed replenishing of their depleted pellet inventories. This increased demand gave us the heavier than expected shipment volume we saw in Q1 and let us to increase our sale volumes expectation to 20.5 million long tons for the year. The pellets we did not sale in the fourth quarter of 2017, we sold in the first quarter of this year and for higher prices.

The long-term resilient of this industry is what a centered dollar strategy around, and as well fluctuations quarter-over-quarter are not the real problem. With a healthy manufacturing economy in the United States, like what we have today and expect to continue Cliffs will strive as a strong and critical entity. While we plan to continue to be a vital part of the domestic steel industry forever, we have never felt the same about the Asia-Pacific market. Since my first day of the job here, APIO has been a non-core asset. As I have made abandoned clear, I never felt comfortable with the Australia-China trade situations, and always believe that China would eventually start to care about pollution maybe in low-grade ore producers like Cliffs APIO with a nonviable operation.

We are actually very fortunate that the Chinese moved toward higher grade ores did not happen earlier. With that, we were able to benefit from our APIO asset as long as we did through the end of the viable mining over there. When I first came to Cliffs, we had four business segments two of which were profitable, USIO and APIO. We quickly and efficiently exit coal in Blue Lake then profitable operations at that time. Now that APIO is unprofitable, we’re exiting it quickly and efficiently as well. This is our final strategic exit of a business that was on my initial agenda. So as of this past Sunday, we have officially seized all mining activity and forgone and initiative to sell additional tonnage.

We will crush, rail and sell the remaining inventory in the second quarter. This percent of the workforce is already gone and we have brought on a third-party KordaMentha to begin assisting with the mitigation process. We have a number of assets with real value that we will be divesting including railcar, trucks and the rotary car dumper. As noted in the press this morning, our last shipment comes in June and therefore the APIO segment will be treated as a discontinued operation starting in Q2.

With that, we would no longer report segmented specific results nor we would be part of our ongoing operations for adjust EBITDA, but the entity -- I am sorry -- thus the entire $40 million of negative EBITDA from APIO reported in Q1 will be reverted in Q2. One final comment on APIO, I can’t possibly talk about the closure of this business without expressing my sincere gratitude to our phenomenal team in Australia. With great work and dedication, the team kept these assets alive probably longer than anyone else who would have and consistently kept the clean and safe record.

To our General Manager, Jason Grace, and the entire APIO team, my only regret about this decision is losing your efforts. You will be the one thing I will miss about Australia. Back into the U.S. two weeks ago, we celebrated the official groundbreaking of our HBI plant in Toledo, Ohio. However because we will detain all our permits in record time, we were actually able to start the physical work almost two months ago and are currently ahead of schedule. The project team has working quickly in awarded civil works, piling, and foundation contracts which will allow us to begin setting steel in the third quarter of this year.

Thus along with the great progress made so far at Northshore puts us well on track to deliver DR-grade pellets to Toledo by the end of 2019 and to deliver customized-HBI to electric arc furnaces by mid-2020. The most important attribute, our HBI will have is that we control the primary feedstock needed to produce it, our Northshore low-silica pellets that have already been tested and approved by the most selected of the pellet buyers. This is completely different from other producers of HBI who need to rely on outside sources for DR-grade pellets. When you don’t have the right pellets or can't buy pellets at all, nothing will work for you. We not only have the pellets but we also have the right pellets as we are the only one in the Great Lakes who can produce DR-grade pellets.

To wrap up, we are headed into right direction towards the business I have always envisioned for our company. Today, we are more profitable even at lower iron ore prices. The last remaining non-core business segment is almost out of the picture, and we are grateful to be operating in the domestic market that's trustworthy and resilient. Q2 has already started and it looks really good. Even it was skeptical for a living, or if you don’t appreciate a real company doing real things and generating real results. 2018 EBITDA and cash flow generation will leave you with zero doubts about Cleveland-Cliffs.

With that, I'll turn back to Mariana to being the Q&A.

[Operator]

[Operator Instructions] Your first question comes from Lucas Pipes with B. Riley FBR. Your line is open.

[Lucas Pipes, B. Riley FBR]

Lourenco and team, I wanted to touch a little bit on your balance sheet. So I think you ended the first quarter was about $789 million of cash. So the way I look at, the growth project you fully funded and then I look at your guidance for this year and it looks extremely robust. On my numbers, you are going to be generating a lot of free cash flow. So it seems you have maybe a cash problem, and I wondered kind of what you're thinking in terms of allocating that capital? Could you for example think about share repurchases or could you maybe go back to the convertible issue that was issued last year? I would appreciate your thoughts on that.

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Lucas, we've never changed our way of doing business here. Our primary use of cash this year will be off course taking care of our HBI Project. We are doing that very well. We are actually spending less money this year than we were anticipating in our conservative assumption; and you are absolutely right, we are going to be generating a lot of free cash flow. This being said, we want to take care of our next maturity that are not eminent, but we do have 300 million of debt maturities in 2020 and 2021, we are going to take care of that at the right time.

Beyond this priority, HBI 1 taking care of our 2020 and 2021 debt maturities. We are going to start thinking about returning capital to shareholders, and we are not going to be telegraphing that too much. At the right time, we will do it. And I believe that I have been communicating very well to the various shareholders and stakeholders in general, that my primary way of doing that will be establishing a dividend.

We can't stop with a special dividend just to celebrate the beginning of the process and then initiating our annual dividend that we will grow overtime, the way it should be, because this company now that we are USIO-company driven towards those blast furnaces in the EAF. We will be the best cash flow generator among all companies operating in the steel and mining business in the United States. So, we're very reliable in terms of cash and very boring in terms of how we will take care of business because we are very predictable. But these are the way we're going to go moving forward.

[Tim Flanagan, EVP and CFO]

Lucas, I’d just add to that as well, I mean, and consistent with what we've been talking to The Street about for the last 12 to 18 months is, as an organization we have a net debt target of approximately $1 billion. So as you think about the fact that we've prefunded the HBI Project last December, we are going to generate a substantial amount of cash this year that just gets us back to that net debt number more rapidly than what we would've otherwise forecasted previously, so very much in line with what our expectations are.

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

And actually, we've bought this $1 million, we're not talking about the buying-the-sky goal. That would have been accomplished at the end of last year, had not spent close to $300 million, making three very strategic acquisitions, that people tend to forget about. We acquired the minority position of U.S. Steel at Tilden. We acquired the minority position of ArcelorMittal at Empire and we acquired land in Nashwauk Minnesota. And we would be at 1 billion net debt by the end of the year, if we had not done that. But these three acquisitions were strategically a lot more important than checking the box. Oh, Lourenco got today -- L.G. got today $1 billion that he said. Yes, I got it. And then I spent the money. I just did it a little earlier than the end of the year because that’s what a dynamic company does and a CEO that knows what he is doing thus with a board that understands the business, and that’s what Cleveland-Cliffs is about. We work for the long-term shareholder. We don’t work for the guidance go in and out in the stock. This is not a trading stock. This is a company that generates cash. It generates a lot of cash and generates a lot of profits. And overtime, we appreciate as we are patient people.

[Lucas Pipes, B. Riley FBR]

I want to catch on a little bit on very strong cost performance in Q1 and then how that ties in just a full year? So, you were below the lower end of the range for full year, you produced 4.5 million tons. So, I mean, that’s pretty good chunk of your annual production target. So do you have maybe visibility on where you could shakeout within the range? Are you maybe being a little bit conservative on the cost side? I would appreciate your perspective.

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Lucas, first of all, our assets are very well maintained. When we have to spend a little more money to do things we do, we do not skip stuff just to show a quarter that if with wonder why might look a little worse. So, we do what we have to do and we have a very mature implementation of predictive maintenance throughout all of our operations, mining, and power plants. So, we are in good shape as far as the condition of our assets, our equipments.

We also do a phenomenal job mitigating inflation, and we have hundreds of cost initiatives going on at a time. With that, we believe that we are in a very comfortable cost positions in terms of cost to produce high-quality pellets. We are feeling that the price of pellets are not only staying good but we will continue to appreciate, and our margins will be large with the cost we pursued toward $1 or buying this $1. It has to anticipate, but we are in the ballpark, we’re in the range, and our margins are in phenomenal shape, to think more about the margin less about the cost bites, Lucas.

[Lucas Pipes, B. Riley FBR]

We will see how it plays out over the course of the year, but as you said very good position relative to your guidance. Maybe one last one, you sold a lot more tons in Q1 than anticipated. I think the release mentioned the shipping season opening a little bit earlier, but I was wondering to what extent it also related to inventory situation at your customer, so I think somebody -- someone of your customers push some tons out like last year. So if you could comment on the inventory position and maybe you said also has an impact on Q2 deliberation? And maybe you can put a full year on from the perspective, given the very strong back up on the industry fundamentals?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Look, by and large, our blast furnace clients, they were low in inventory at the end of last year. So, it's easy to see that when you think like that. Our USIO business Lucas likes to end at any given year with 3 million tons pellets in inventory. At the end of 2016, we ended with 3.2 million tons in inventory; and at the end of 2017, we were at 3.4 million tons of inventory. So, they -- it’s a bad life's award. They can do that because they trust Cliffs so much that they know that we’re going to take care of them. So, they were low, but they were not bothering because of that.

Of course, I'd love to have sold a little more in Q4, but I love even more that I sold the same pellets in -- the same physical pellets in Q1 a lot more expensive because that's the way they contracts work. So, they will adjust going forward I guess, if they don’t, I’m fine as well. But this year, consumption will be very high because their business is good, no matter what happens with Section 232, prices will continue to be high and demand will continue to be good. Service centers and others will be a lot more cautions and how much they are importing, how many tons they are importing of steel, where they are getting steel from, how much they're paying. All these good things, so this year would be a good year for these two businesses in United States.

So, in the 500,000 tons of pellets that increased in our sales forecast, if you notice, this is exactly what we have already included. We can always dip more into inventory. We can end up with sales up to anyone or 1 million tons or even little more than 1 million. So, that's the year that we're envisioned. Good prices, good demand, volumes very solid or that's the best I can give to you at this point. And at this point, it's not even all of that but we're going to have a lot of exceptions on Section 232. I'll tell you, I don’t see any service centers importing a lot of galvanize from Vietnam because they will be very concerned about not getting the galvanize that they need from them using in the United States and then there will be left without steel in a moment that the market is doing well. So, it's a good dynamics in the market right now.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Curt Woodworth with Credit Suisse. Your line is open.

[Curt Woodworth, Credit Suisse]

The first question is just in relation to the HBI. In the global HBI markets transitioned a lot of those past 10 years and Venezuela is going from I think 7 million tons down to one. I don’t think any of that's going into the U.S. Obviously, U.S. many mills have shifted more towards pig iron and busheling feed. So I guess the question is. What gives you confidence that you would see a larger shift back to HBI in U.S. market? And can you comment just generically on how you think it would be priced on a, say, value and used basis relative to pig iron and busheling however you think about it?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

First of all Curt, the fact that the domestic mangers continue to acquire an import virgin iron units just confirms the thesis they need virgin iron units badly. So, they -- you're completely right. They start with HBI from Venezuela and then they shift towards PI. Why was that? Because Venezuela that was never really a source of reliable supply anytime of in the history of this business, became even worse in recent years. So, our Venezuela that was not a great supplier became a totally earned reliable supplier. So they shift the domestic buyers, they shift towards the sources that they could get, and they could get sources in Ukraine, they could get sources in new Russia, even some few tons from the Middle-East even Egypt is showing that they are sure right now.

So, they are getting up what they can get. This being said, this is commercial HBI, commercial pig iron that is produced in mass and it is what it is. So, the phosphorus that comes in HBI from Ukraine and the sulphur that came in HBI from Russia or the compression resistance update while that comes from India or Pakistan, it is what it is. So, we are going to supply HBI for EAF that are really serious about producing high end automotive. EAFs that are really serious about producing the most difficult specs of SBQ. So, we are going to be very selective in our clients. We are going to allow these clients to reach markets that are completely out of reach even now even when they use this type of commercial quality feedstock. And we are going to benefit together.

They will make a lower margin. We will make a lower margin. That’s all I can give you right now about what's going on HBI. Conversations are ongoing, and we are going to start to see noise about and a lot to be just that noise because we are talking to very selective partners, and we are developing our business plan quietly. We didn’t do project finance because of that. We didn't got a part -- we didn't get a part because of that, because I didn't know what to disclose what I am doing commercially. We are going to make a margin that will be a lot bigger than pellets. In the past, I have said 2 to 2.5 tons, the margin we make with pellets I'd tell you right now Curt. This was very conservative. We are going to make more than that.

[Curt Woodworth, Credit Suisse]

And then just a follow-up on capital allocation for instance to Lucas' point given your funded on HBI, and I bet your core USIO business generating over 800 million of free cash this year alone. So, you have another 180 million of tax benefits coming in the next two years. Would you look at any other project? I mean obviously the HBI you are going to take 2.5 million tons of DR pellets out of the North American market. Are you going to look to replace that capacity at all? And then I think at the groundbreaking, you mentioned evaluating a potential additional HBI unit, share you comment?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Yes, look, we are -- we have a lot more concern about the first HBI facility at this point, and anything that we have -- they do once that used the value-over-volume metric before anyone else in the entire world had used of that. So when I talk about second HBI in our groundbreaking ceremony, I’m talking to Ohio, I’m talking to Governor Kasich, has been a huge supporter of our project in Toledo. Together with the local officials and the elected Congressmen and Senators in Ohio, we have been having all kinds of great support in Ohio. But I’m also talking to Minnesota because you know Minnesota basically did not support me to get my first HBI facility there. And they might lose even the second whenever the second comes.

But that’s not my concern right now. My concern is the first one. My concern is generating a lot of cash flow this year. I want that you and others the three to six months down the road start asking me. Why did you issue those bonds and those converts in December, if you could have funded these things without the issue? So yes, because I don’t have a crystal ball, I need to be conservative. So, we did and we did it right and though we got it very cheap. And we had a transaction that was extremely positive for us, on any circumstances. And we are going to start thinking about returning capital to the shareholders. And that’s what our company is about to reward the long-term investors in the Company. By the way I’m number 10 right now. I have nine hedge funds ahead of near number 10. I’m the tenth largest shareholders of this company. So I like dividends and things like that. The other ones are Capri [ph] and Blackstone, State Street, all these guys.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Seth Rosenfeld with Jefferies. Your line is now open.

[Seth Rosenfeld, Jefferies]

To start out, I know you already touched on this a bit, but I would like to understand a bit better the development of realized prices and expectations and guidance from that to the course of Q1. Couple of weeks ago or I guess three a month’s ago, at the time of our full year results, the guidance on $75, you came into the $105 realized price for U.S ore. Clearly spot market trends have been stronger than perhaps forecast over last couple of months, but given your long term contracts I guess my own math that doesn’t really explain the scales to uptake in realized prices. So, can you talk a little bit more about how perhaps your cost per or freight mix changed over the course of the last couple of months? And how that will impact your ASPs and perhaps the sensitivity to that moving forward?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

I will be glad to, here is the thing. In the winter, we don’t ship vessels through the Lakes. We are only able to rail stuff. And we have one client that takes a lot of rail shipments and that one client used to have a contact with us that is not the best contract in the world, that client is Algoma. Well, in the last 3.5 year, we negotiated a lot of stuff with Algoma, we placed one at a contract that was a lot better than the previous contract and so at that point, we're averaging Algoma the way other clients are treated. And then on top of that, we added our third contract with Algoma and that contract even makes things is likely better for us than they were before.

But at the end of the day, the contract that shift rail is not a great contract for us. Well, we were planning to rail and we knew what we’re going to rail, and we started towards the only doing rail. And then the weather improved and because we've managed this business as our commercial enterprise, we have vessels already loaded at port. So as soon as the weather improved, we’re able to start delivering ore to our clients. So, we delivered a lot of ships to clients in the last ten days of the month of March, and those who are -- the real contracts they're not the once specific contract with Algoma that has as more amount of tons, but it's the one that unfortunately is the one, one that we can do and the links are proven.

So then we were back to -- back in business, back in the real business, and that was not to improve our pellets realization as much as they did. More quality in that can do it -- the other important thing that I did not mention that hot rolled price improved a lot in the first quarter. So that was already I am going to like benefit over even the rail contract that goes to Oklahoma. So that contracts alone would be that is just based on the enormous appreciation to the hot rolls prices that happened in the first quarter.

[Seth Rosenfeld, Jefferies]

Just a follow-up on that and excuse me, if I am just being pedantic on this. But if I think about your guidance that you're targeting 1 million tons at $75 ASP, you had 1.6 million tons at 105 ASP. What’s the disparity in realized pricing between the rail contract and the non-rail contract to stride that scales and uplift? And can we assume that our last 600,000 tons was actually achieving a realized price well ahead of the group average 105?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Okay, so again, we are assuming 1 million tons of rail contracts alone at a much lower hot rolled price than we were realized. If we had done just the 1 million of rail at the actual hot rolled prices, we would be way above the 75. And then on top of that, we are able to send 6 vessels to the Lakes in the last 10 days of March that we're not anticipating at all. So, there was a double digit that the contract and the same that the hot rolled price had influenced that.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Matthew Korn with Goldman Sachs. Your line is open.

[Matthew Korn, Goldman Sachs]

You alluded it a little bit before, speaking of the Nashwauk region. What's the most updated news there that you can share where you and the other party, there is some competing property claims? What do we need to pay attention to timing wise, around any court deadlines? Other regulatory decisions are coming in the near term and then I guess in some from your perspective, what's the stake there for Cleveland-Cliffs?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Look, we acquired the land over there, we acquired the land, and we acquired 100% of several of parcels and we entered in long-term leases for 100% of several other parcels. And we also acquired land that was 50% in very few parcels inside the Nashville property, and the other 50% was owned by Superior Minerals. And superior minerals sold to Chippewa. So sold to Chippewa, sold out instead of having 50% Cliffs and 50% Chippewa -- I am sorry 50% Superior owns those few parcels.

We have 50% Cliffs and 50% Chippewa own those parcels. So that's pretty much it. The 50% never changed, only the owner. So that's the first thing. We are going to have a rule about that acquisition in Delaware in May. And we are going to have that because we are pushing to have a final rule because we have so much conviction that our purchase is good that we are asking the Judge to make a determination, a final determination on that.

So that's what you should be watching, but one of the most important things to watch is not this thing of a who is going to end up with what, it's like that. Let's assume that that this stock debut what I don’t really to it. And they were stock having to hire real people, expanding real mining, deploying a $1 billion of so to finish whatever is there. Then they will have to do what. They need to sell the pellets. That you are not -- you are new in this thing, but other people in the scroll will know that not too long ago, U.S. steel was supposed to restart in fact the long pellets and compete against Cliffs.

And what happened with that? They restarted KiTek. They tried to sell in the domestic market, ended up selling pellets in China. So that’s it, that’s the business models for pellets. And these are the guys in Minnesota, they still have to build and building is not easy especially for people that don’t know what they are doing like Essar was because Essar tried that for like 10-or-so years, and they fail so badly. So what is bad for them that is good for us. That's the bottom line. So don’t watch that thing too much that’s so properly we are taking care of and we will prevail at the end, we are prevailing every day. And the águila caminando [indiscernible] like I mean that is walking eagle in Spanish, but the other guy has Venezuela and that supports, so that is the story.

[Matthew Korn, Goldman Sachs]

Let me then just turn bigger picture. So far, from what I hear from the steel markets, they're now cumulating a new with your results today, things are pretty good as far as the steel market. I want to ask you, what makes you feel certain that the demand levels that we're seeing in steel markets, what's driving the strong shipment today? That there is not a significant boost of from buyers bringing foreign orders out of concern, concern that suppliers won't be there in a month, concern that the foreign steel providers won't kick orders, so that there will be more policy shifts adding the more unforeseen friction. What gives you confidence? So this isn’t a matter of timing, but this is a matter of stepping up in terms of total demand.

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

This is my conviction in the American economy. I really believe that the United States will continue to be a powerhouse economically, and manufacturing unit will continue to be a big part of the future. If we will have that conviction then we believe that things will go back. Other than that, take the automotive market. The automotive market has been stable at a very, very high level of car production in the United States for some time and automotive industry by and large buys domestic steel. They don’t import. They talk about 232, about this, about that because they know that at the end of the day, the ultimate impact of this things are in the price. So, they don’t like to tell you relax, but that doesn’t change anything from the realization standpoint. One car is one ton of steel.

Every time you see a car, Matt, you are seeing a ton of steel in wheels. So 1 ton of steel, 25% on the old price of galvanized a 100 bucks is 200 bucks. So that your brand new car that used to cost $30,000 now cost $3,200, everybody who continues to buy cars. The deal is probably will be the only one that should be complaining about nobody else, well that’s the story, all the rest is just blips. They are currently is good, nobody can deny that after this tax cut, after that everything that if you eliminate the noise, what’s going on in the economy is underlined very, very, very good in the United States.

And that’s why I have so much conviction that this year things will be okay. On top of that, a lot of these people they're complaining to you because they like to call and I don’t figure names, but they are complaining to you, to other research analysts. They are also talking a good talk to my clients in this studious because they want to get their fair share. The two views that reported already this quarter they both said that they’re selling at the top of their range even with the contract. So that’s what’s going on, all the rest is just noise.

[Operator]

Your next question comes from Michael Gambardella with J.P. Morgan. Your line is now open.

[Michael Gambardella, J.P. Morgan]

Just a question surrounding the HBI Project. How do you the potential market for your project in terms of tonnage and some of the potential users have captive sources of their own DRI. So what do you think is the size of a market for your project?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Mike, the market for HBI, DRI, pig iron in the United States, as we speak is approximately 4.5 million metric tons a year. Out of this, 4.5 million metric tons a year, 3 billion metric tons are in the Great Lakes. And that’s the market I am aiming. So the one that has captive production in that Nucor, they -- at this point, they are a lot better served in terms of their locations in the South than their locations into Great Lakes because when one HBI facility is in Louisiana and the other is in Trinidad.

You might say all that can send their DRI up the river in [indiscernible]. Yes, they can do that in the Mississippi, but that has a cost and we’re going to be the local guide in the Great Lakes. So I am very confident, highly confident in bankers' language, and I have high confidence that we’re going to be supplying Nucor in the Great Lakes. Same thing with Steel Dynamics, same thing with North Star BlueScope, same thing with Big River, same thing with several other that we're talking to. So we only have actually 1.6 million tons a year for a market that’s 3 million tons. We don’t have for everyone. We’re going to have for some, not for everyone. So that’s why we’re not talking to everybody, we’re talking to selective potential clients.

[Michael Gambardella, J.P. Morgan]

Okay and the iron ore feedstock into your HBI Project, you’re obviously contracted now on all your iron ore. Are you going to be producing incrementally for iron ore or some contracts coming off that will give you availability to the feed the HBI Project?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

No, look first of all, it's not iron ore it's pellets. Pellet is our manufacturing product. Iron ore is something that producing Australia and Brazil, it's like iron ore is raw meat. What we produce is a New York street at the steakhouse. So, it's a lot better, it's like Peter Luger, you want to take catch. So, yes, that's what we do. And you are absolutely right to ask the question because that's another thing. The shift that's happening in the United States and is still making is ongoing. Blast furnaces are shutting down and electric arc furnaces taking the place of the blast furnaces that were then before. It has been happening for decade. So, we are not creating a duration that we going to be producing more to take care of the EAFs and then to force competition between the EAFs and blast furnaces that we will end up creating more friction for prices of steel in the United States.

We are actually replacing clients in the blast furnaces market with client in the EAF type of the business. So, we are going to migrate from blast -- ultimately, we are going to migrate from blast furnace pellets to DR-grade pellets supplying our facility and those DR-grade pellets will be transforming HBI supplying the EAFs that ultimately will be replacing some of the weakest of the blast furnaces. And I'm not going to determine who is going to die, but someone is going to die and the attrition and competition of the market will determine who are going to be the survival and who are going to be ones that we will go away. But the fact of the matter is that nobody can deny that there is a push toward the EAFs going into high end in steels. They have the ability to do it. They have the balance sheet to do it. They have the support from their clients. What they don't have now is quality feedstock. I'm providing that. The rest will be just good old supply demand and price appreciation in both sides the HBI and the blast furnace stuffs.

[Michael Gambardella, J.P. Morgan]

But do you have contracts for pellets right now that terminate before say 2020 and 2021, when you're going to start need pellets to feed into your HBI project that can you just incrementally product more pellets for the project?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Look. I'm now going to produce incrementally more pellet, Mike. By that time, we are going to be producing, and by the way, it's not going to turning us regions then we will shut down 2.4 million tons of pellets and produce 1.6 million tons of HBI. So, it'll be a ramp-up and it will be a ramp-down for blast furnace pellets supply, direct supply. But this transition is very well thought and we are now going to continue to supply everyone in the blast furnace side by that time.

We are going to be supplying ourselves with our DR-grade pellets to produce HBI because HBI will be even more profitable for us than the current pellets business. And that's why the demand in the domestic market is asking for it. The demand is not asking for more production, the demand is asking for -- the market is asking for the shift towards blast furnace to DRI and that's exactly what we are very thoughtfully doing here.

[Michael Gambardella, J.P. Morgan]

Now, I understand that and I'm just curious, do you -- your current business is fully booked out with contracts pellets. And in 2020 when you start the HBI Project, where are you going to get that pellets feedstock from? And maybe another way to ask the question is, by 2021, do you have contracts today that will -- that give you ample flexibility to feed pellets into the HBI?

[Lourenco Goncalves, Chairman, President and CEO]

Yes, we have different contracts with different clients that with different expiration date. We have all that. Of course, we are well planned for that. The most important point Mike that we are not producing more just to create more friction in the marketplace, you're saying excellence is going down, and when the blast furnace goes down and never comes back. If we don’t do something to mitigate that, we're going to end up with our smaller business. We are actually showing that Cleveland-Cliffs has a runway because we are just starting that. We are just scratching the surface with HBI now.

We have a runway that if you know 100 years or 120 years, we have no more blast furnaces to have Cleveland-Cliffs. That’s why we are here around for 170 years because my predecessors, not the ones that I keep doubt 3.5 years ago, but the ones that had a legacy of this company, they had this same line of thought, and they were very strategically when they did what they did with pelletizing when they run out of ore. We are doing more or less the same thing. We are losing the same strategic rationale.

This is a long-term business. Decision that we make today, they bear fruit three to four years down the road. The good and the bad, so we're trying to do all the good decisions and not doing the bad that my predecessors did, this is behind us, completely behind us. Unfortunately, I had to do what I had to do and I don’t deliver three quarters because I had to write-off start, I had to shut down start. This is gone. We are going to be a very boring company going forward. We are going to be so predictable and so profitable that we will be totally undeniable from the marketplace.

Alright, so with that, I think we reached the end of this call. I appreciate you guys stay with me through this hour and two minutes. And I look forward to continue to have this dialogue as we continue to take care of Cliffs for us, for all our shareholders, and for our bondholders. Thanks again and have a great day. Bye now.

[Operator]

This concludes today's conference call. You may now disconnect.