Cleveland-Cliffs, owner of AK Steel, plans to restart an iron ore mine in Tilden, Mich., prompted by higher demand from AK Steel customers.

Chairman and CEO Lourenco Goncalves released a statement earlier this week crediting the recovering steel market with prompting the company's actions.

“The demand for our steel, iron ore and metallics products has recovered dramatically over the past month, and in light of this, we are restarting (a) Toledo, (Ohio, iron plant) and Tilden sooner than we originally expected,” Goncalves said.

Goncalves went on to say the company suspended plant operations in both cities in a such way that allowed Cleveland-Cliffs to restart both easily and efficiently.

The company idled its Michigan mine in mid-April, and said the shutdown was temporary with plans to restart it in July.

But AK Steel customers, particularly its automotive customers, are beginning to return sooner than expected, according to the company, so the mine will reopen later this month.

As for the Toledo iron plant, the company said construction crews are being recalled.

According to officials with Cleveland-Cliffs, the company already restarted other facilities that were temporarily shuttered through the COVID-19 lockdowns this spring. Those facilities include AK Tube, the Mansfield Works in Ohio, and downstream lines at the Dearborn Works in Michigan.

The AK Steel Butler Works employs about 1,200 workers on a 1,300-acre site in Butler Township. It was acquired, along with the whole of Ohio-based AK Steel, in December for $1.1 billion.

The Trump administration announced last month it was opening an investigation into whether imports of foreign electrical transformer parts threaten national security by circumventing tariffs meant to protect domestic steelmakers, including AK Steel.

These same components are made at AK Steel's Butler Works.

The move came following Goncalves telling the administration and other legislators earlier this year that he would be forced to close locations unless a loophole is closed in the steel tariffs.

Buyers of electrical steel used in the manufacture of transformers for the nation's electrical grid have found ways around the tariffs by buying lower-grade steel from countries like China, South Korea or Japan and then having it shipped to Mexico or Canada for partial processing.

AK Steel mills in Butler and Zanesville, Ohio, are the last U.S. producers of grain-oriented electrical steels. The iron-silicon alloys were developed to provide low core loss and high permeability required for efficient and economical electrical transformers.