Minnesota Brown

The financing necessary to resume construction at the Essar Steel Minnesota taconite plant in Nashwauk is now in question, according to a Ron Brochu report that ran in the Scenic Range News Forum and Business North. For five years, India-based Essar Steel has been building a new iron mine near where the former Butler Taconite…

Essar Steel Minnesota isn’t for sale. That according to the India-based steelmaker seeking to build a new taconite plant on the western Mesabi Iron Range. Earlier reports had indicated that the company might be packaging its new plant for sale once its completed in 2015, but Essar says those reports were speculative and incorrect. Given the…

This item is cross-posted with my Up North Report blog at StarTribune.com. The Star Tribune’s Dee Depass reports that Essar Steel has secured $450 million in new private financing, and is injecting $300 million of its own money into finishing its long-awaited Nashwauk taconite plant. Here on the ground north of Nashwauk, the project has…

Northland NewsCenter jumps in with its own report about the work stoppage and financing issues at Essar Steel’s construction site near Nashwauk, Minnesota. The headline: Up to $12 million is owed Iron Range contractors for work already completed at Essar’s planned taconite mine. Oh, and I’m in this one, saying pretty much the things I…

More details about the shaky financial situation at the Essar Steel construction site near Nashwauk, Minnesota are coming to light: Nobody is working at the Nashwauk site now. Millions are owed to construction contractors and laborers. At least one contractor has filed a lien on the project. Essar says it hopes to have its financing…

WDIO reports that union officials say many workers are being pulled off the Essar Steel Minnesota site near Nashwauk, Minnesota, as the company continues to search for financing to finish the long-awaited project. Rumors that contractors are owed large sums of money seem to be confirmed with news that many workers are not reporting for…

This month another flurry of activity kicked up on the site of Essar Steel Minnesota’s new taconite plant near Nashwauk, Minnesota. But questions remain as to how quickly Essar plans to integrate the Nashwauk plant into its North American steel operations. This long-awaited, heavily state-subsidized, “might-make-steel-someday-but-probably-not” project has been a major curiosity for residents of…

Dee DePass of the Star Tribune reports that Essar Steel Minnesota’s project in Nashwauk has experienced the financing delays local observers have long suspected. Essar is set back a year. Essar Steel Minnesota will delay the opening of its Nashwauk taconite plant until the second half of 2014, officials confirmed Thursday. The plant, 90 miles…

A source with knowledge of the proceedings of the Itasca County Railroad Authority told me about an update on the construction of Essar Steel near Nashwauk, which was shared at a recent meeting of the authority. Essar has increased their staff to about 100 people, on its way to about 325 permanent personnel to run…

Here’s an interesting item. Cliffs Natural Resources today announced that it has signed an extension of an existing iron ore contract to provide taconite pellets to Essar Steel’s Algoma steel mill in Ontario through 2024. They had already been providing ore to Algoma, India-based Essar’s foothold in the North American steel industry, while Essar completes…

Construction of Essar Steel Minnesota’s major project northwest of Nashwauk continues to make spurts of progress. This week, Minnesota Power announced that the electrical infrastructure is now complete, meaning that we now have power lines, new roads and fresh railroad spurs leading to a big brown field adorned with massive concrete footings. Nearly all of…