Cleveland-Cliffs extends closure of Northshore Mining until April
SILVER BAY, MN – Cleveland-Cliffs, which operates four taconite mines and processing plants on Minnesota’s Iron Range, announced Friday it plans to keep its Northshore Mining facility closed until at least April, 2023.
Cliffs first idled Northshore on May 1, resulting in the layoff of about 410 of the 580 employees who work at the open pit mine outside the small town of Babbitt and the giant pellet plant along the shore of Lake Superior in Silver Bay.
The company is embroiled in a royalty dispute with Mesabi Trust, which owns the mineral rights where the iron ore is mined.
In a conference call with investors, Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said with the increased use of scrap at its steelmaking facilities, it doesn’t need the taconite pellets produced at Northshore at this time.
“We are extending the ongoing idle at our Northshore swing facility until at least April of next year,” Goncalves said.
“Rather than deplete this finite resource for the benefit of the Mesabi Trust … we’ll keep Northshore idle until we decide otherwise.”
Three years ago Cliffs spent more than $100 million to upgrade the Northshore facility in Silver Bay to produce DR-grade pellets, which are used to make a kind of iron ore feedstock that’s needed to supply electric arc furnaces, a newer kind of mill that now dominates the nation’s steel industry.
But Cliffs has since shifted its DR-pellet production to the Minorca Mine in nearby Virginia, Minn., which it acquired when it purchased another steel company, ArcelorMittal USA, in 2020.
“I feel like it’s a blow to my gut,” said Babbitt Mayor Andrea Zupancich. “Belts are going to be tightening up all over the Range.”
Zupancich said this news affects more than just Babbitt and Silver Bay and the laid off workers. Everyone “knows someone who works at the mine or is affected by it,” she said.
The temporary closure was originally expected to last until at least September. Now Zupancich said there’s just a lot of uncertainty.
MPR News
Great Lakes steel production slips by 16,000 tons
Great Lakes steel production fell by 16,000 tons, while steel capacity utilization ticked up last week, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.
Locally, steel mills in the Great Lakes region, clustered mainly along the south shore of Lake Michigan in Northwest Indiana, made 549,000 tons of metal in the week that ended Oct. 1, down up from 565,000 tons the previous week.
Steel mills remained below 80% capacity, a key threshold they operated at for most of last year, following the latest wave of industry consolidation, imposition of blanket tariffs of 25%, strong demand and generally favorable market conditions. Imports have been rising again after steel prices soared to record highs.
Overall, domestic steel mills made 1.7 million tons of steel last week, up 1% from 1.683 million tons the previous week and down 7.6% compared to 1.839 million tons the same time a year prior.
Nationally, steel production in 2022 totals 68.118 million tons, a 4.1% decrease from 71.047 million tons through the same period last year.
U.S. steel mills have run at a capacity utilization rate of 79.6% through Oct. 1, down from 81% at the same point in 2021, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.
Steel capacity utilization, a key metric of the industry’s profitability, was 77.1% last week, down from 83.3% a year earlier but up from 76.4% a week prior.
Steel production in the southern region, which encompasses many mini-mills and rivals the Great Lakes region in output, totaled 746,000 tons last week, up from 715,000 tons the week before, according to the American Iron and Steel Institute.
Volume in the rest of the Midwest ticked up to 196,000 tons, up from 194,000 tons the week prior.
NWI Times
Tug to assist saltie Solina to Milwaukee for repairs
On Friday evening, the tug Meredith Ashton arrived alongside the saltwater cargo vessel Solina, which had been stopped off Manistee, MI, with engine problems since Thursday. She will be towed to the heavy lift dock in Milwaukee for repairs. Solina is operated by the Polish company Polsteam.
Book Seaway Queens salutes iconic ship design
MONTREAL, QC – The Lakers that ply the Great Lakes-St. Lawrence Seaway are the workhorse ships of the waterway, tirelessly supplying industry with the raw materials needed to build and sustain the North American heartland. Earlier versions of the vessels did so with a certain panache, uniquely constructed for inland shipping and borrowing from trends in industrial design and even art. The pinnacle of their aesthetic
was the mid-20th Century, an era when form and function weren’t mutually exclusive, as explored in a beautiful new coffee table book.
Seaway Queens, The Style & Grace of Legendary Lakers tells the story of the iconic freshwater fleet praised and respected for the essential role its played across the wider Great Lakes region, and beloved in the individual towns and communities on the lakes and rivers where the ships are fixtures. The book spans the earliest days of marine through to the modern era with 10 themed chapters discussing major changes and developments in areas such as technology, fleet renewal and the environment.
“It was a fun book to design, research and write, and we intentionally added elements to make it a bit different, including stories that have not already been told and graphic elements and features that aren’t necessarily typical in books on shipping,” said author Jim McRae. “A bonus was having renown naval architect Joseph Fischer pen the forward. The overall objective was to give readers something special, including our
companion app that makes the images on the pages come alive through video. It’s a fun and exciting technology and really enhances the experience.”
Seaway Queens key features:
• More than 130 museum and private collection photos
• Signature Art Deco-inspired design and layout
• Engaging storytelling, including interviews with sailors, industry executives and experts
• Custom app that transforms printed images to videos on readers’ smartphones
• So much more…
“There is a lot going on within the pages of the book, but the stars of the show are
definitely the ships,” said McRae.
While the ETA for Seaway Queens is the end of October, pre-order purchases are currently possible at seawayqueens.com Copies of the book will also be available at marine museums and bookstores across the
Great Lakes; a list will be posted online prior to launch.
Extremely low water levels on St. Lawrence have forced the IJC to take action
ROCHESTER, NY – The International Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River Board (ILOSLR) will be reducing outflow through the Moses-Saunders dam this weekend to give boaters on Lake St. Lawrence an opportunity to remove their boats from the water.
The lake has been hovering at record-low levels all summer, making boating difficult. It sits directly at the mouth of the Moses-Saunders dam, where outflow along St. Lawrence is regulated.
Read the full article at this link: https://www.rochesterfirst.com/news/extremely-low-water-levels-on-the-st-lawrence-have-forced-the-ijc-to-take-action/
Obituary: Capt. Arn Kristensen
Capt. Arn Kristensen passed away Oct. 1 at his Florida home. He was 95.
Arn grew up in northern Norway at the end of a peninsula where his extended family had a small farm and fished. As soon as World War II ended, he began sailing, first on coastal steamers and then deep sea. After a couple of years, he emigrated to Duluth where he had relatives and started sailing the lakes.
He worked his way up the hawsepipe, and when Erie Sand Steamship Co. bought the Alpena, he went along with the boat and it soon became his first command. Over the years he sailed all of Erie Sand’s large vessels, retiring about 1990. During his sailing years he lived in Dearborn Heights, MI, Marblehead and Danbury Twp. OH. In retirement it was St. James City and Bokeeelia, FL.
Arn is survived his wife Deloris, daughter Sonja of Danbury Twp., OH and son David of Bokeelia, FL. Arn was a member of the American Legion and Moose and a former member of the International Shipmasters Association and the Elks. Information on services is not yet available.
