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Minnesota Duluth Complex and Iron Range

PolyMet launches next critical phase of controversial mine plan for NE Minnesota – by Josephine Marcotty (Minneapolis Star Tribune – November 3, 2016)

http://www.startribune.com/

A monthslong review and more fierce debate over copper-nickel mining expected.

PolyMet Mining Corp. has formally applied for a permit to mine copper and nickel in northeast Minnesota, the first of its kind in state history and a key turning point in the long fight to establish a new but environmentally risky kind of mining in the region.

The 15,000-page application launches another extensive state review and is likely to set off a fierce new round of debate — this time over design of the mine, the loss of thousands of acres of wetlands, and how PolyMet would treat contaminated water decades after the operation closes.

The application also addresses a critical question that has hung over the project for years: How much money PolyMet will offer as financial insurance against future pollution and reclamation costs. It’s proposing $12 million for the first year of construction, $44 million for the second, and $197 million for the third.

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[Mesabi Iron Range] FOOTPRINTS OF A GIANT – by Aaron Brown (Hibbing Daily Tribune – October 23, 2016)

http://www.hibbingmn.com/

Once, a few years ago, I was overcome with the urge to climb a roadside berm at an Iron Range taconite mine. I drove by this spot all the time, but couldn’t picture what was on the other side.

So I did it. (Don’t try this at home kids). I scrambled up the side to peer over the rampart. I’d seen mine pits before, but this was a tailings pond. Picture a vast lake surrounded by martian landscape spanning the entirety of your peripheral vision. The groaning engines in the pit miles away were the only sound.

I was overcome by the loneliness of it all. I came prepared to evade security. But there were no humans here. Not one.Despite recent struggles, iron mining remains the most productive industry here along Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Range.

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Thursday hearing could decide fate of Essar mineral leases – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – October 19, 2016)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

A federal bankruptcy hearing Thursday in Delaware could decide the fate of valuable mineral rights to the iron ore under the shuttered Essar Steel Minnesota project in Nashwauk.

Attorneys for the state of Minnesota will argue that the mineral rights were withdrawn from Essar in July after the company failed to finish the project and reneged on paying $66 million owed the state for unfulfilled economic development guarantees.

The state also wanted Essar to repay local contractors and vendors who worked on the half-built project but who have not been paid. But Essar filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection minutes before the state officially pulled the mineral leases, and now Essar is arguing that the mineral leases should be listed as assets that will be decided by the bankruptcy court — likely not until 2017 at the earliest.

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Cliffs breaks new ground on the Iron Range – by Dan Kraker (Minnesota Public Radio – August 11, 2016)

https://www.mprnews.org/

After a year of layoffs and mine closures in northeast Minnesota that occurred while the U.S. steel industry grappled with a historic downturn, the Iron Range celebrated a piece of good news Thursday. Gov. Mark Dayton and other state leaders were on hand as Cliffs Natural Resources broke ground on a $65 million expansion at its United Taconite plant in Forbes.

The upgrades will allow Cliffs to produce a new specialty iron ore pellet it calls the “Mustang” pellet, which will supply North America’s largest steel blast furnace at the Indiana Harbor facility outside Chicago, operated by the steelmaker Arcelor Mittal.

In May, Cliffs announced a new 10-year supply contract with Arcelor Mittal. The new pellet, which will begin production in March 2017, replaces a pellet produced at the Empire Mine in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, which Cliffs closed earlier this month when the mine ran out of ore.

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Inside the aging lock that is one breakdown away from crippling North America’s economy – by Peter Kuitenbrouwer (Financial Post – July 30, 2016)

http://business.financialpost.com/

SAULT STE. MARIE, MICH. — The dispatch tower above the Soo Locks on a fine July day offers a spectacular view, but there is little time to admire it. There are five telephones and five radios, and at 9 a.m. a radio squawks. “Go ahead, captain,” says Chris Albrough, lockmaster with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

“Can I have the upper and lower water levels?” asks someone who turns out to be captain of the M/V Burns Harbor, owned by the American Steamship Co.

“Upper is plus 24 inches, lower is plus 31 inches,” Albrough replies, reading from one of five screens. Translation: the water in Lake Superior today is 24 inches above its mean level, whereas the St. Mary’s River is 31 inches above. He watches as the mammoth bulk carrier ship slips from the Poe Lock into Lake Superior.

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Ely calls a truce over mining as tourist economy booms – by Dan Kraker (Minnesota Public Radio News – August 2, 2016)

https://www.mprnews.org/

Tanner Ott and his father John have made a career rehabbing historic buildings. They do it for love and for money, and they believe both can be found now in Ely.

The Otts, who’ve summered here for more than 25 years, have placed a big bet on downtown. Their family’s Missouri-based firm now owns eight long-vacant buildings, including the historic State Theater, which they began renovating in 2014. The marquee came alive Saturday for the first time in 20 years.

They hope to make the 300-seat venue a space for movies, live music, business conferences, weddings, and other events. By the time they’re done, the overhaul may cost $1.5 million — serious money in a town that not long ago appeared to be on the skids. But the Otts are sold on Ely.

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Cliffs CEO paints upbeat picture of potential for disputed Essar Steel site – by Mike Hughlett (Minneapolis StarTribune – July 12, 2016)

http://www.startribune.com/

CEO says firm would build “direct- reduced iron” plant; Essar has vowed to fight its ouster in court.

The CEO of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. says that if his mining company gets control of the newly bankrupt Essar Steel site in Nashwauk, Minn., it would build the first of what could be several “direct-reduced iron” plants — an advancement for Minnesota’s iron ore industry.

Lourenco Goncalves, CEO of Cleveland-based Cliffs, made the remarks Tuesday at a public meeting at the Nashwauk Township Community Center along with Gov. Mark Dayton. Cliffs has talked before about building a direct-reduced iron plant in Minnesota, but Tuesday marked the company’s most detailed ­comments.

Last week, Dayton terminated Essar Steel Minnesota’s mineral leases after the steelmaker failed to pay $66 million due the state for the company’s long-stalled $1.9 billion taconite mine in Nashwauk. That prompted Essar, an arm of India-based conglomerate Essar Global, to file Chapter 11 bankruptcy in Delaware.

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[Minnesota mining] Both sides steeled for Twin Metals hearings – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – July 11, 2016)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

The debate over federal mineral leases at the proposed Twin Metals mine near Ely isn’t just a philosophical discussion over copper mining in Northeastern Minnesota. Twin Metals officials say the leases mean life or death for their project and any other future mining in the Rainy River watershed.

The federal leases in question “are really the foundation of our project,” said Bob McFarlin, spokesman for Twin Metals, a Minnesota company wholly owned by Chilean mining conglomerate Antofagasta.

Twin Metals and its predecessor companies already have spent more than $350 million toward the project, McFarlin told the News Tribune, and all of that could be for naught if the U.S. Forest Service withholds the leases.

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Essar Steel Minnesota’s Chapter 11 Bankruptcy – Another Victim Of The Chinese Steel Industry – by Tim Worstall (Forbes Magazine – July 10, 2016)

http://www.forbes.com/

Essar Steel Minnesota went into Chapter 11 bankruptcy on Friday as the State of Minnesota withdrew the state licences for the taconite the company was preparing to mine. It might seem a little odd that an Indian owned mine in Minnesota will go out of business as a result of the Chinese steel industry slowing down but that is what has happened.

This globalisation thing really does mean that the international markets are connected in this manner. The basic background here is that taconite is a low grade form of iron ore used to make steel. As China’s steel industry has grown less fast than other iron ore miners thought it would the price of high grade ore has fallen. That in turn has knock on effects on the low grade ore. There is a way out of this but not for the current owners, Essar.

The story:

“Essar Steel Minnesota, a sister company to Essar Steel Algoma and an expected future supplier of taconite to the Sault steelmaker, has filed for U.S. Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, Minnesota news media are reporting.

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PolyMet gets more cash from Glencore – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – June 15, 2016)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

PolyMet Mining Corp. on Wednesday said it will get another $14 million in cash from its largest investor, Switzerland-based Glencore, to help the junior mining company advancing toward opening Minnesota’s first copper mine.

PolyMet announced the new loan in its quarterly financial report that shows the company continuing to spend money as it seeks state and federal permits to start the mine and processing center north of Hoyt Lakes.

PolyMet received $3 million on June 3, will get another $8 million in July and $3 million in August, with PolyMet paying Glencore 15 percent interest. Glencore also is asking for a PolyMet financing plan that will enable the company to repay Glencore in 2017 and have money to complete permitting.

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Antofagasta lobbies Minnesota D.C. delegation – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – May 23, 2016)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

Top officials from Chilean mining company Antofagasta are in Washington this week meeting with key Minnesota lawmakers and their staffs about the company’s proposed Twin Metals copper mine near Ely.

Antofagasta is sole owner of the fledgling Twin Metals Minnesota company that wants to build a copper mine along the Kawishiwi River and on the edge of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.

Federal regulatory agencies are critical to the project because they hold key access to mineral and exploration rights where Twin Metals wants to mine. The Bureau of Land Management of the Interior Department currently is deciding whether to renew some of those leases.

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On the Iron Range, prolonged downturn is taking its toll – by Jennifer Brooks (Minneapolis Star Tribune – May 2, 2016)

http://www.startribune.com/

AURORA, MINN. – When the mines go down on the Iron Range, everything else seems to follow. “Everything’s just closing down,” said Debra Schermann, standing on Main Street Aurora on a chilly spring Tuesday, staring across at the shuttered storefront where she once ran a pet grooming business.

The only grocery store in this east Range town of 1,600 went out of business in January. Aurora’s only drugstore shut its doors last summer, a few months after the nearby Mesabi Nugget iron plant idled, throwing 200 people out of work for at least two years.

It has been more than a year since the first layoff notices went out across the Range. The loss of those jobs, and the thousands that followed, cut across the region like a riptide. Two thousand layoffs in the mines triggered 1,350 layoffs among the contractors and mining support industries downstream.

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Cliffs Jumps Most in Seven Years as Profit Tops Estimates – by Sonja Elmquist (Bloomberg News – April 28, 2016)

http://www.bloomberg.com/

Cliffs Natural Resources Inc., the biggest U.S. iron-ore miner, jumped the most in more than seven years after first-quarter earnings exceeded estimates and the company announced supply-contract renewals with steelmakers.

Cliffs rose 25 percent to $5.39 at 4 p.m. in New York, the biggest gain since November 2008. The closing price was the highest since June. The Cleveland-based company’s shares have more than tripled this year as commodities including iron ore rallied.

Cliffs cut its cash production costs by more than a quarter in the U.S. and Asia, and Chief Executive Officer Lourenco Goncalves said in a statement that “consistent signs of a real recovery” in the domestic steel market are helping bolster orders at clients. The company boosted its capital spending forecast as it develops a new iron-ore pellet with ArcelorMittal, and reached a supply agreement with U.S. Steel Canada.

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Nolan: Minnesota can have mining and clean water – by John Myers (Duluth News Tribune – April 12, 2016)

http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/

U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan on Tuesday told a convention of mining executives that Minnesota can have both mining and a clean environment, and that he’s working to make sure copper mining happens in the state.

Nolan, D-Crosby, who represents Northeastern Minnesota’s Iron Range, was the opening speaker at the annual convention of the Society for Mining, Metallurgy and Exploration Minnesota Section at the Duluth Entertainment Convention Center.

Nolan focused on the convention’s theme of how global economics are affecting both Minnesota’s longstanding iron mining industry and fledgling copper mining prospects — including foreign competition, global overcapacity and low prices.

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Iron Range is latest region to face resource curse – by Lee Schafer (Minneapolis Startribune – April 10, 2016)

http://www.startribune.com/

Maybe we’ve been wrong all along about the abundant deposits of iron ore in northeastern Minnesota, enabling generations of Minnesotans to earn a good living by mining.

Maybe we’ve been wrong all along about the abundant deposits of iron ore in northeastern Minnesota, enabling generations of Minnesotans to earn a good living by mining. That great natural resource might not be a blessing after all. More like a curse.

It’s not a stretch to call it that, because all of that iron ore wealth just didn’t turn out to be the building block of a thriving and sustainable regional economy.

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