Northshore Mining, shut down since last spring, poised to restart
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Cleveland-Cliffs says it is recalling some of the more than 400 workers it laid off last spring, idling one of the Iron Range’s key mining and taconite production operations.
“Cleveland-Cliffs is calling back some workers to Northshore Mining,” company spokesperson Patricia Persico told MPR News in response to an inquiry about the operation. “We will provide more details when we decide when and at what capacity this operation will be brought back online.”
Northshore, which makes high quality DR-grade pellets for electric steel furnaces, was shut down last spring, idling most of the nearly 600 people that worked at the mine in Babbit and the pellet facility on the Lake Superior shore in Silver Bay. The company said in July it was extending the shutdown, possibly into the second quarter of 2023.
Cleveland-Cliffs said at the time that steel producers were using more recycled steel in their furnaces and didn’t need the pellets, although the company has also been haggling with Mesabi Trust over mining royalty payments in 2020, 2021 and 2022. The trust filed for arbitration back in October.
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The layoffs have been a source of alarm on the Iron Range as well as in St. Paul, where lawmakers recently moved to extend unemployment benefits for the workers affected by the shutdown, many of whom had reached their 26-week unemployment benefit limit in November. A bill signed by Gov. Tim Walz late in January extended that for another 26 weeks and included retroactive benefits.
The news was welcomed by officials on the Iron Range and across Minnesota.
“This is a win for Silver Bay, northeastern Minnesota and the state as a whole,” Walz said in a statement released Monday afternoon.
“The North Shore mine and Babbitt and the plant in Silver Bay will be in fact reopening in April so the bridge that we provided them and an unemployment extension will reach to that date,” said State Sen. Grant Hauschild, (DFL-Hermantown) at the Capitol on Monday. “I'm excited that this came to fruition.”
U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar also welcomed the news, in a statement she released Monday.
“After meeting with miners impacted by the Silver Bay plant and Babbitt mine idling, working with local northern Minnesota legislators to push for the extension of state unemployment benefits, and most recently, meeting in Washington with Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves about reopening, I’m glad mining operations will be reopening in Babbitt and Silver Bay and the miners will be returning to work.”
Cleveland-Cliffs is the biggest supplier of flat-rolled steel on the continent — a key component in automotive production. It operates four mines in Minnesota, including Hibbing Taconite, United Taconite in Eveleth and the Minorca Mine in Virginia, as well as Northshore, formerly known as Reserve Mining.