ArcelorMittal extends mining rights in Liberia, plans to boost iron ore capacity

ArcelorMittal has extended its Mineral Development Agreement with the government of Liberia to 2050 and is considering taking its iron ore concentrate production in the country to 30 million mt/year, the company said in a Jan. 30 statement.

"I welcome this Third Agreement to the concession agreement, which will unlock a major expansion of ArcelorMittal Liberia's operations, with [iron ore concentrate] production increasing to 20 million metric tons and projected to grow to 30 million mt," the President of Liberia, Joseph Boakai, said in the statement.

Under the agreement terms, ArcelorMittal will pay $200 million to the Liberian government for the extension of certain mining rights and for the reservation of access to the Tokadeh to Buchanan railroad on the grounds that it has invested in its expansion, as well as in the construction of an additional berth at the port in Buchanan.

The company has been mining in Liberia for 20 years and has recently spent $1.8 billion there, including on the above expansions, with the majority of the capex allocated to the construction of the new iron ore beneficiation plant, which has been operational since mid-2025.

ArcelorMittal expects iron ore shipments from Liberia to increase to 20 million mt/year from 2026. The company also stresses that the new concentrate has a higher grade and value, and that it is now undertaking feasibility studies for further expansion of the plant beyond 20 million mt/year.

The mining site's production and shipments in 2025 have not yet been disclosed, but analysts expect them to top 10 million mt, up from 3.8 million mt in 2024.

Self-sufficiency envisaged at 88%

ArcelorMittal has not disclosed customer-level offtake for the new Liberian concentrate, but several analysts surveyed by Platts believe that third-party sales will be limited, and that most volumes will be internalized within the company's own system, significantly increasing its self-sufficiency in the raw material.

"Given that ArcelorMittal has a few electric arc furnaces [they do not use iron ore], taking only its blast furnace production as the demand, the company has previously covered up to two-thirds of it through backward integration. Now about 10 million to 15 million mt will come on top of that from Liberia, and I suspect a lot of it will displace EU [iron ore] imports from Brazil," said an analyst who wished to be anonymous.

In 2024, ArcelorMittal's iron ore production was at 42.4 million mt. At the same time, its crude steel output totaled 58 million mt/year, of which 14.4 million mt were produced in EAFs. The BF production came to 43.5 million mt, including potentially 64% or 27 million mt produced from own iron ore feed using roughly 1.6 mt of it per ton of steel, according to Platts estimates based on ArcelorMittal's factbook data.

In its latest annual report, the company estimated its iron ore consumption in 2024 at 71.1 million mt, of which 40.9 million mt were sourced from its own mines and facilities.

Assuming all iron ore produced is used internally, ArcelorMittal's self-sufficiency rate could increase to 88% in 2026-2027, thanks to Liberia ramp-up, from 56%-58% in 2023-2024, estimated Maxime Kogge, a metal and mining analyst at ODDO BHF Investment Banking.

European mills most probable users

"I have no precise information, but it would make sense [for ArcelorMittal] to send Liberian product to the European mills," said Kogge.

Another financial analyst, who wished to remain unnamed, also said he viewed ArcelorMittal's European BFs as the most probable users.

"ArcelorMittal Europe remains a meaningful BF producer and is positioned as the primary internal consumer of pellets and concentrate, and the company's management reiterated Liberia as a strategic project that enhances vertical integration into iron ore to capture margin across the value chain," he said.

ArcelorMittal's steel mills in Brazil and its joint venture, ArcelorMittal Nippon Steel India, both have significant upstream access to iron ore, so concentrate flows there from Liberia could be incremental and opportunistic. At the same time, if Liberia's concentrate meets DR-grade spec in the future, it may be suitable to partly feed ArcelorMittal's direct reduced iron production network, according to the same analyst. If not to count a very small and experimental DRI module in Hamburg, Germany, that network is comprised of the HBI plant in Texas, which sources iron ore from Canada and Brazil.