For the past five years, Gary Norgren, ArcelorMittal USA's general manager of mining, has looked out over Lake Michigan in early December hoping not to see another winter like that of 2014.

The Great Lakes remained frozen into early spring that year, forcing the steel giant's chartered bulkers to follow an icebreaker through treacherous ice channels.

ArcelorMittal's ships had to cross the Soo Locks to deliver iron-ore pellets from company mines on Lake Superior to its northwest Indiana steel plants at the lower tip of Lake Michigan.