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Itasca County commissioner resigns
Commissioner Mark Mandich resigned his seat on the Itasca County Board this week. The board accepted Mandich’s resignation at their meeting Tuesday. My sources tell me that Mandich cites health problems as his reason for stepping down. The Itasca County Board authorized a vacancy, instructing the county auditor to prepare a special election. Details on…
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U.S. Steel CEO Longhi to retire; Burritt takes over
One of the Mesabi Iron Range’s largest mining companies will be under new leadership next month. Mario Longhi, CEO of U.S. Steel, will retire June 1. Company chief operations officer David Burritt will take the helm. U.S. Steel is an integrated steelmaker, meaning that the company mines its own ores, produces steel in blast furnaces, and finishes…
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From horse and buggy to hybrids, the woman who lived history
My great-grandmother Ruby Peck died Feb. 26, 2017 at the age of 103. For most of my life she lived alone in a small house set amid the rolling hills of southern Pennsylvania. My great-grandmother was a rock-ribbed Republican who voted that way because the GOP was the party of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S.…
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Cliffs boasts big earnings, state support in Essar battle
Last week, Cliffs Natural Resources CEO Lourenco Goncalves announced that his company posted a $199 million profit in 2016. That reflects a positive swing of almost $1 billion from the dismal 2015 downturn of the American steel industry. It’s also basic math, as Cliffs finally has all its Minnesota mines up and running, filling orders…
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Keewatin Taconite will reopen in March 2017
WDIO reports that Keewatin Taconite will reopen in March 2017, ending a 19-month shutdown. U.S. Steel announced it signed pellet contracts with third party steelmakers, providing the spark to reopen the long dormant Keewatin plant. KeeTac was the last taconite mine on the Range still closed after last year’s steel downturn, which at one time had…
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U.S. Steel vows (nonspecifically) to restore 10,000 jobs
In recent days, we’ve been talking about the general improvement of stock and commodity prices as they relate to Mesabi Range iron mines. One of my key observations was that despite the surge, U.S. Steel’s Keewatin Taconite remained closed after 18 months. Well, stop the presses. Maybe. On Wednesday, U.S. Steel CEO Mario Longhi said on…
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Iron Range uncertainty endures even as iron ore surges
Last night, history professor Jeff Manuel and I spoke to a patient, nice-sized crowd at the Grand Rapids Public Library about the past, present and future of the taconite industry on the Mesabi Iron Range. Our conclusion was as follows: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ OK, perhaps that’s a little glib. Point is, you look at the short term you…
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Grandpa has something to tell Grandma
Gray skies hang low over the idled Keewatin Taconite plant. I meet my grandpa, Marv Johnson, at the very busy Sinclair gas station. We’re on a secret mission. “Too crowded,” he says. I peek around the corner at the gas station’s only table and chairs. Several townsfolk stare back like whitetail deer. Grandpa’s already back…
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LIVE BLOG: Primary Night on the Iron Range
Welcome to the Tuesday, Aug. 9, 2016 MinnesotaBrown primary election live blog. Your intrepid host Aaron Brown will provide analysis of Iron Range results throughout the evening. We’ll pay close attention to the House 6A DFL contest and St. Louis County commissioner races. 11:00: There will be more to write in coming days, but we can…
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Range mines catch a Super Mario star
If Iron Range mines were Super Mario, they’d be blinking while knocking off Goombas left and right. More on that below. This week brought quarterly earnings reports from the two biggest mining companies on Minnesota’s Iron Range, U.S. Steel and Cliffs Natural Resources. Both companies show significant improvement from a dismal 2015. Cliffs posted a profit…
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Inside fundraising in House 6A Range DFL primary
Last week at the blog we dove into a debate over who funds Iron Range campaigns. At the time we didn’t have access to the first major campaign finance reports. Well, the Campaign Finance Board released those reports Tuesday morning. You can view them for yourself here. So let’s explore the fundraising for Northern Minnesota’s…
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U.S. Steel slashes 25 percent of salaried jobs
Pittsburgh-based U.S. Steel, owner and operator of two major mines on the Mesabi Iron Range and co-owner of a third, announced Wednesday it would slash 25 percent of its salaried workforce. The job cuts are focused on its North American operations. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: The steelmaker had 21,000 employees in North America as of…
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Cliffs eyes acquiring Essar plant
As snow fades from the ditches of Northern Minnesota, the Essar Steel construction site north of Nashwauk remains frozen in time. Minor movement in and out of the site is but partial salve for the idled hope of hundreds of jobs from the region’s largest new mining project in a generation. Essar has stated that it hopes…
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Confusion over deal for unemployed miners
On Friday, the Minnesota House of Representatives passed a bill funding extended unemployment benefits for laid off Iron Range miners attached to controversial unemployment tax cuts for businesses. Though House DFLers opposed the pairing of those two issues, ultimately most Range DFLers argued for its passage so that unemployed miners without benefits could receive aid. Rep.…
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Magnetation coming back, but Plant 1 in doubt
Like other Iron Range mining operations, Grand Rapids-based Magnetation was battered by the collapse in iron ore pricing and domestic steel demand last year. The homegrown Northern Minnesota company declared bankruptcy and lost ownership interest to a hedge fund amid financial restructuring. In 2014, Magnetation had four plants running, salvaging old mining waste from decades earlier and extracting…