Nugget plant may find home on the Iron Range

Nugget plant may find home on the Iron Range

Chances have improved that Minnesota’s famed Mesabi Iron Range could soon be the proud recipient of the world’s first commercial-sized iron nugget plant. Mesabi Nugget LLC has been lobbying furiously for the construction of a plant that would help develop a new taconite-based industry on the Iron Range. What was once regarded as an uneconomic waste product, taconite has become a vital source of iron as high-quality iron ore veins are mined out. The new plant would produce nuggets containing about 96% iron. Such nuggets are produced by extracting iron from powdered waste rock using high-powered magnets. The iron is then combined with limestone and clay, rolled into 1-cm pellets and then oxidized at very high temperatures. The Mesabi Iron Range, is an approximately 13’000 square mile (21’000 square km) area in northern Minnesota. Mesabi derives its name from the Chippewa Indian Tribe meaning “giant”. The area is the chief iron ore deposit in the US and a major production area of taconite. Iron nuggets are a rapidly growing segment of steelmaking and the construction of such a plant would reinvigorate the area’s economy. Environmentalists are urging caution and a careful review of the environmental impact such a plant would bring. A 30-day public comment period for the project starts May 13.