Magnetation LLC said Wednesday that it had successfully produced iron ore concentrate at its new plant 4 in Coleraine.
The Grand Rapids-based company said the new plant has begun operations three months ahead of schedule and nine months ahead of the original project goal.
Plant 4 is the largest so far for the company, double the size of the three earlier plants. The new facility will churn out about 2 million tons of 65 percent pure iron ore concentrate annually that will be headed to Magnetation’s new plant in Reynolds, Ind., to be baked into pellets that then go on to feed eastern U.S. steel mills.
Originally a $140 million project — now $168 million — plant 4 will employ about 180 people.
“The plant 4 design and construction effort is one of the finest project executions I have seen in my 40 years in the
industry,” said Larry Lehtinen, Magnetation chief executive officer, in a statement released Wednesday. “Despite significant weather and engineering challenges, the plant 4 team along with our contractor partners has achieved first concentrate production less than 10 months after the first concrete pour.”
But the plant’s construction did have some serious issues. Just last week Magnetation asked for and received $13 million in public loans to help pay for a $28 million construction overrun at the plant caused when the original construction work began to sink into the ground. The company quickly fixed the problem but asked for both state and Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board loans to cover part of the cost in the short run.
Magnetation already has three operating plants on the Range — near Keewatin, Chisholm and Bovey — that separate useable iron ore concentrate from the rest of the unusable rock in piles of ore waste left behind by mining operations a half-century or more ago. The company’s efforts so far have focused on the western Mesabi Range, where natural ore-washing plants were more common in the early 1900s and where larger, now-dry piles of the leftover ore are sitting. Around plant 4 alone, Lehtinen said about eight or nine years’ worth of high-grade iron oxide is lying in piles and tailings basins, waiting to be recovered.
When the old mine “waste” runs out, Magnetation also has the rights to mine natural red ore from the old Canisteo pit, where company officials say 100 years of ore reserves remain.
Source: Duluth News Tribune
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