Open / Close Advertisement

Cliffs Natural Resources to Resume Production at Idled Iron Ore Mine

In a statement, the company said it intends to resume production by 15 May.

"The avalanche of unfairly traded steel hitting the U.S. since last year negatively affected our clients' production levels and, as a consequence, affected us. At this time, with the trade cases approaching their final stages and preliminary duties being announced, the volume of unfairly traded steel is starting to subside,” said Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs' chairman and chief executive.

“As our clients' order books improve and their need for pellets approach more normal levels, we are pleased to announce that we are bringing back to work our dedicated employees at Northshore." Northshore Mining is comprised of a mine and a taconite pellet processing facility. It has approximately 540 employees.

In 2015, it also began producing direct-reduction grade pellets for direct reduced iron plants.

“As we restart operations at Northshore in May, we will also resume the production of DR-grade pellets destined to (electric arc furnace) clients," Goncalves said.