14 January 2010Production begins at Mesabi Nugget
“A new age of iron” has been launched on the Mesabi Iron Range.
Mesabi Nugget, the world’s first commercial demonstration iron nugget plant, successfully produced its first iron nuggets on January, 12, 2010.
Constructed near Hoyt Lakes by Steel Dynamics, Inc. and Kobe Steel, Ltd., the $270 million facility will gradually increase its production level to 500,000 metric tons of iron nuggets annually.
Iron nuggets are a new value-added product made from Iron Range ore.
Nuggets produced at the facility are a slag-free, high-purity iron containing a metallic iron content of 96 percent to 97 percent. The nuggets will be fed into electric arc furnaces at Steel Dynamics, Inc. in Butler, Indiana.
The production of iron nuggets for electric furnace application creates a new market for Minnesota iron ore.
Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range, the nation’s largest producer of iron ore, has for decades produced iron ore pellets which are fed into the blast furnaces of integrated steel producers.
Iron nuggets can be continuously fed into the electric arc furnaces of mini mill steel producers to make steel.
A pilot demonstration plant at Northshore Mining Co. in Silver Bay, which completed its work in 2004, proved the iron nugget process.
Construction of the Mesabi Nugget plant began in November 2007 on a portion of the former LTV Steel Mining Co. property.
Up to 700 construction workers were employed on the project. Mesabi Nugget employs about 75 permanent workers.
Additional iron nugget production modules could be constructed at the Hoyt Lakes site.
Kobe Steel, which developed the environmentally-friendly ITmk3® iron nugget process, is also seeking to develop iron nugget projects in North America, Vietnam, India, Russia, Australia and other countries.
Iron Range Resources and the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development each supported construction of the Silver Bay pilot plant with $8 million loans.
Iron Range Resources provided a $16.488 million loan for the Mesabi Nugget commercial demonstration facility. DEED supported the project with a $10 million loan from the Minnesota Minerals 21st Century Fund.