CLF restarts line idle since 1999. Snips from the Duluth News Tribune:
duluthsuperior.com
Posted on Mon, Dec. 06, 2004
Lee Bloomquist/News Tribune
United Taconite fires up line
Production from the kiln, which has been idle since 1999, will be a boon for the region.
Taconite pellets began rolling off a mothballed line at United Taconite on Sunday afternoon for the first time in five years...
Refurbished at a cost of $23 million, the line will expand United Taconite's capacity by about 1 million tons per year. Taconite pellets produced at Iron Range mines are the primary ingredient used to make steel.
The restart is a byproduct of a boom in the domestic steel and taconite industries, fueled by global demand and a restructuring by North American steel producers.
Cleveland-Cliffs owns 70 percent and Laiwu Steel 30 percent of United Taconite.
With the expansion, United Taconite will be capable of producing 5.3 million tons of taconite pellets annually. If the taconite plant produces 5.3 million tons in 2005, it would be the facility's highest year of output since 1981, when it produced 5.8 million tons as Eveleth Mines.
"The restart of Line 1 is a major event and a testament to the strength of the market," said Dana Byrne, a Cleveland-Cliffs spokesman. "It's (United Taconite) a strategic asset of Cliffs, and I think this restart is an indication of that."
In 2003, Cleveland-Cliffs and Laiwu bought the bankrupt taconite plant for $3 million and $40 million in long-term environmental liabilities.
Cleveland-Cliffs has talked about an additional expansion, to produce 700,000 tons of taconite, in 2006. But a decision to move ahead has not yet been made. That expansion would bump the taconite plant's annual capacity to 6 million tons. |
