Minnesota Gov. Mark Dayton says that if Essar Steel Minnesota doesn’t pay outstanding bills to its contractors by the end of the businesses day on Wednesday, he will call the state’s $66 million loan in full. Essar seeks to build a $2.6 billion taconite plant on the western Mesabi Iron Range, but has been plagued by… Read More →
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Essar Steel Algoma files for protection from creditors
November 10, 2015 by 4 Comments
Essar Steel Algoma — sister company to Essar Steel Minnesota in Nashwauk — announced it would file for bankruptcy creditor protection in Canada and the United States today. The steel mill is located in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, and is part of Essar’s plans to use pellets made at the taconite plant under construction now on the… Read More →
Range War: Essar, Cliffs clash shows Mesabi at crossroads
October 18, 2015 by 35 Comments
~ ~ ~ Speculation can be ignored, but one must reckon with concrete. Here along Northern Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range one finds many messy versions of the truth surrounding Essar Minnesota’s new taconite mine under construction near Nashwauk. While controversial, actual activity at Essar shows that new mining will happen on the grounds of the… Read More →
Gov. Dayton, officials meet with Essar to negotiate repayment
October 13, 2015 by 4 Comments
On Monday, Gov. Mark Dayton and Iron Range lawmakers, along with officials from the state Department of Employment and Economic Development, met with representatives of Essar Minnesota. Essar is building a new taconite mine on the western Mesabi Iron Range, but scuttled initial plans to build a value-added steel mill on the site, all while… Read More →
Steel-making shortfall spurs Essar scrutiny
September 22, 2015 by Leave a Comment
It was supposed to be an innovative integrated steel mill. That remains the fundamental shortfall of the Essar Steel Minnesota project near Nashwauk on the western Mesabi Iron Range. Work continues, to be sure, but Essar Minnesota will initially open as a straight-forward taconite plant. Perhaps next summer. Perhaps later, depending on who you talk to. That’s the trouble…. Read More →
Essar seeks 3-year deal to avoid paying back $67 million
September 14, 2015 by 1 Comment
It was no secret that Essar Steel would be requesting more time to meet the provisions of a state grant that provided critical early infrastructure to its huge new mine near Nashwauk, Minnesota. The company has until Oct. 1 — about two weeks from now — to produce value-added iron products as it originally proposed…. Read More →
Financial Times explores Essar project
August 19, 2015 by 2 Comments
The new Essar mine project near Nashwauk has attracted the attention of the Financial Times of London. This summer, Financial Times reporter Aaron Stanley visited the Essar construction site and interviewed both local and international sources on the conditions facing this long-awaited new iron mine on the Mesabi Iron Range. You can read the Aaron… Read More →
Essar ramps up Nashwauk construction
May 26, 2015 by 3 Comments
Construction is accelerating at the long awaited $1.9 billion Essar iron mine near Nashwauk, while Essar now says it’s optimistic about producing direct reduced iron products here. In a tour of the site on May 21 with Mitch Brunfelt, Essar’s assistant general counsel and director of government and public relations, I took pictures and observed… Read More →
A close look at Essar construction
March 31, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Yesterday, Dan Kraker of Minnesota Public Radio filed a report about Essar Minnesota, the new taconite plant under construction near Nashwauk, Minnesota, on the Mesabi Iron Range. In essence, the long awaited project — funded in part by massive state and regional investments — has reached the critical mass needed to see completion (as soon… Read More →
Cliffs CEO details DRI hopes, swipes at Essar
February 17, 2015 by Leave a Comment
Cliffs Natural Resources CEO Lourenco Goncalves spoke yesterday morning at the company’s annual community breakfast in Virginia, Minnesota. WDIO was there: To stay strong in the steel industry, the company is very seriously considering making DRI grade pellets, which have a higher iron content. Northshore Mining has already tested this possibility. “We are working on three… Read More →
