BRUSSELS - Arcelor Mittal, the company formed last year in the largest- ever takeover in the steel industry, said Wednesday that 2006 profit fell 3.5 percent because of higher taxes and it announced plans to hand $2.4 billion to shareholders.
Net income fell to $7.97 billion from $8.26 billion, based on figures calculated as if the [...]

Cleveland-Cliffs Inc., a producer of iron ore pellets that are used to make steel, said Wednesday its fourth-quarter profit improved 27 percent as a booming steel industry contributed to higher sales volumes and pricing.
Quarterly earnings after paying preferred dividends rose to $82.3 million, or $1.59 per share, from $64.7 million, or $1.18 per share, in [...]

Cleveland-Cliffs showed a slight decline in its Lake Superior ore shipments last year.
The last boat leaving the Marquette ore dock in mid-January was the 310th of the year. That compares to 358 in 2005. That means 1.4 million tons less iron ore moved through the Upper Harbor. Total production was also down at the [...]

Baosteel Group, China’s largest steelmaker, and a rival, Wuhan Iron & Steel Group, are seeking to invest in iron ore projects in Australia to secure supplies to meet rising demand.
“We are looking closely at potential iron ore projects,” Zhang Yong, Baosteel’s Australian investment manager, said in an interview before a mining conference that started Tuesday [...]

BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, will probably say fiscal first-half profit climbed to a record on surging commodity prices.
Net income probably rose to $6.3 billion for the six months ended Dec. 31 from $4.4 billion a year earlier, according to the median estimate of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Melbourne-based BHP, [...]

BHP Billiton Ltd., the world’s biggest mining company, will probably say fiscal first-half profit climbed to a record on surging commodity prices.
Net income probably rose to $6.3 billion for the six months ended Dec. 31 from $4.4 billion a year earlier, according to the median estimate of six analysts surveyed by Bloomberg News. Melbourne-based BHP, [...]

South Korean steelmaker Posco discussed ways to cooperate with the European steel company being created by the combination of Mittal and Arcelor on Friday, but said it reached no firm commitments.
The meeting came amid increased consolidation and attempts to forge alliances in the global steel industry.
Mittal Steel Co. NV, based in the Netherlands, agreed to [...]

Westar Energy knew its coal-fired plant was in trouble.
The Kansas company wanted to build a $1 billion, 800-megawatt power plant, but construction costs kept rising as global demand for steel and other materials skyrocketed. Soon $1 billion became at least $1.4 billion — costs ultimately passed to consumers.
Faced with sobering numbers, the utility in January [...]

BHP Billiton, the world’s biggest mining company, said Thursday that second-quarter iron ore and manganese output rose to records to meet rising demand from steelmakers in China and Japan.
Iron ore production rose 11 percent to 25.4 million tons in the three months ended Dec. 31, from 22.9 million tons a year earlier, BHP said in [...]

Merrill Lynch analysts declared Wednesday that nickel still “has the best fundamentals of the industrial metals” and that “nickel companies should deliver excellent results during the reporting season.”
Research Analysts Daniel Hynes and Vicky Binns wrote that “we remain bullish on the longer term prospects for nickel,” despite their predictions that the “nickel price will be [...]