Minnesota Duluth Complex and Iron Range

http://www.sctimes.com/

Minnesota has a rich history of industry that has shaped the character of our state. From the Great Northern Railroad to the Minneapolis flour mills to premiere medical facilities, our state has contributed to the progress of the United States. But perhaps no other industry in Minnesota has played a larger role for that progress beginning in the mid-19th Century than that of mining.

I recently had the pleasure of spending time on two of our state’s three iron ranges. Here I got a first-hand look at the past and present of this proud industry. Coming from Central Minnesota, I share a mutual respect for mining given our own tradition of being a supplier of granite.

Minnesota’s commercial iron ore mining history dates back to 1884 with the opening of the Soudan Mine near the town of Tower on the Vermilion Range. The “Cadillac” of mines first started as an open pit but operations moved underground to capture the rich ore. By the time the mine closed in 1962, they had reached 2,341 feet below the surface, marking the deepest point in our state!

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http://www.virginiamn.com/

Make no mistake about it, the Iron Range knows this is an attack on mining and
it will have no more of it. The region and its miners, laborers, businesses,
residents — everyone here — is committed to meeting and exceeding the standards
of the federal government’s environmental reviews. We are not here to destroy
the land we use everyday.

We have a deep pride in our history of mining. We helped the United States win
wars over dictators, the iron ore leaving here by train helps fuel the economy
of Duluth and Two Harbors. It builds safe, reliable infrastructure from U.S.-made
steel, and the minerals this region wants to mine will provide for the tech boom
in Silicon Valley. (Mesabi Daily News Editorial)

The Iron Range and its rich history of mining is in a fight for its future, and the deck is stacked against it.

There’s overreaching actions taken by a lame duck administration, there’s delays forced by lawsuit after lawsuit from deep-pocketed environmental groups, and there’s scare tactics to steer popular opinion against the region’s way of life. Enough is enough: It ends here. It started here, and the fight will end here.

The Iron Range is done being paraded around in the three-ring circus of hearings, resolutions and comment periods, which are really nothing more than putting the everyday Iron Ranger on trial by a jury of its uniformed peers.

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http://www.virginiamn.com/

MOUNTAIN IRON/ELY — For most of the first half of 2017, the Iron Range has remained laser-focused on its goals in Washington, D.C.

Far from the now-bustling taconite mines and majestic scenery of northeastern Minnesota is where the real political fight to death is taking place. That might not be hyperbole either: What’s happening in Washington is — quite possibly — one of the most important issues the Iron Range has ever faced.

In December 2016, a little more than a month before it was phased out, the Obama administration took unparalleled steps on two actions that could stunt growth in the region. In one action, the administration denied leases to Twin Metals and its potential underground copper-nickel mine near Ely and the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness. In the second, it placed a two-year moratorium on mining for 234,000 acres of land in the Superior National Forest near the BWCAW, with the intent of studying industrial impacts on the watershed and consider a 20-year ban on those activities.

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http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

ST. PAUL — Minnesota leaders hope a lease they are offering to a new mining company will reverse a decade of frustrating failure in one area they felt held lots of promise.

Officials who feel they were burned by Essar Steel Minnesota, which did not fulfill state taconite mining requirements, then declared bankruptcy, on Monday, June 19, folded what they hope are iron-clad guarantees into a new mineral lease. They hope the new mining company will produce taconite and turn it into an in-demand iron product where Essar Steel failed for years.

Also Monday, it appeared the White House is on the cusp of a major decision about whether to impose new restrictions on steel imports, a choice that has divided President Donald Trump’s administration while sparking global fears about a burgeoning trade war. Steel imports have been blamed for recent years’ economic woes on northeast Minnesota’s Iron Range, where taconite is told to produce steel elsewhere.

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http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Chippewa Capital Partners has reached an agreement with Gov. Mark Dayton over mineral leases at the former Essar Steel Minnesota project in Nashwauk, removing one of the last obstacles to a bankruptcy settlement approved this morning in Delaware.

The agreement allows Chippewa — a joint venture of London steel and energy conglomerate GFG Alliance and Roanoke, Va., billionaire Tom Clarke — to take over the bankrupt, half-built taconite iron ore mine and processing center, restart construction and start mining and processing ore by 2020.

India-based Essar pumped $1.8 billion into the Nashwauk project over seven years but then walked away in late 2015, out of cash and more than $1 billion in debt, filing for bankruptcy last July.

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http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Some of the Northland’s most prominent players aim to reboot the Iron Range’s image with a new promotional publication unveiled during a press conference at Glensheen Mansion Thursday morning.

The glossy 16-page magazine is meant to burnish the Range’s reputation, said Mark Phillips, commissioner of the Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation Board.

Often, Phillips said he encounters “very antiquated visions of the region” that date back to the days of miners working with picks and shovels instead of state-of-the-art technology. He said the notion of the Range as an economically depressed area also seems to persist.

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http://www.startribune.com/

The $75 million investment in Forbes, Minn., signals another economic bump for Iron Range.

In another positive sign for Minnesota’s Iron Range, the parent company of United Taconite has started production at its new $75 million Mustang “superflux” pellet plant in Forbes, Minn.

Ohio-based Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. said the project “was flawlessly executed,” on budget and on schedule after nine months of construction. And firing up the plant equipment had no hiccups on its first day.

“Building a new facility on budget, without any lost-time accidents, and in only nine months through the Minnesota winter is no small undertaking,” said Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves.

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http://www.hibbingmn.com/

For just shy of $1.3 million you could be the owner of a yacht currently docked near Vancouver, British Colombia.

Made of virgin teak, this century-old wooden pleasure ship has been on the market a couple years. Apparently, today’s oligarch-on-the-go simply doesn’t have the time to maintain such an antique. I can distinctly recall my father’s frustration trying to restore and maintain my great-grandfather’s wooden speedboat. The boat seemed almost allergic to water, which was decidedly unhelpful.

But this craft in the Pacific Northwest is much more than a speedboat. And it’s been well cared for. At 125 feet of Depression-era opulence, this particular ship hosted billionaires and Congressmen, celebrities and the ruling class. It cost $421,000 to build in 1930, nearly $6 million in today’s dollars.

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http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Cliffs Natural Resources lost $30 million in the first quarter of 2017, saying it spent more on efforts to reduce its debt and improve its long-term corporate health. The $30 million loss included a $72 million cost for restructuring debt in February. The company has cut its debt to about $1.6 billion compared to $2.5 billion at this time last year.

The company’s first quarter adjusted EBITDA — earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization — was $92 million, up 156 percent over last year. EBITDA is considered a good measure of a company’s current operational health.

Cliffs reported consolidated revenues of $462 million, up 51 percent from last year, due to increased sales and higher prices. The company’s U.S. iron ore pellet sales volume in the first quarter of 2017 was 3.1 million long tons, a 63 percent increase when compared to the first quarter of 2016 as a result of increased demand by its customers — domestic steel producers.

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