Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. will slash production capacity by almost 50 percent next year at its Empire mine, rendering full-year 2012 production volume to fall to approximately 2.7 million tonnes, down from expected production volume of about 4.6 million tonnes this year.

The U.S. miner said the company's planned blast furnace maintenance in 2012 at one of Cliffs' North American customer's facilities will spur the production decline. However, the reduction is not expected to impact Cliff's sales and production volumes in its U.S. Iron Ore business segment announced previously.

Cliff's targets to meet full-year 2012 expected sales and production volumes of 23 million tonnes.

"While the announcement of this production curtailment at Empire Mine will impact our Michigan Operations, we believe the curtailment will be temporary. We will continue to prudently manage our global production base as we work with customers to supply their blast furnace raw material requirements," Terrence Mee, Cliffs' senior vice president, global iron ore and metallic sales, said in a statement.

The company said the production cut may affect some 600 employees at its Michigan operations, beginning in the second quarter of 2012.

The announcement of its production slash sent the company's stock to grow 4.6 per cent to $71.49 in Monday morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.

"They said it won't affect next year's sales, so overall the loss of production will probably be offset by higher iron ore prices," Charles Bradford, of Bradford Research, said in Reuters News.

Prices for iron ore, a key steelmaking ingredient, are currently trending upwards after hitting a recent trough.