“U. S. Steel will adjust its iron ore pellet production in order to take full advantage of these business opportunities. Included in the adjustments is a restart of the Keetac Plant in Keewatin, Minn.,” the company said in a statement. 

The facility has been idle since May 2015. The company said it plans to begin recalling workers this month and resume production in March. 

U. S. Steel didn’t say how many workers would be recalled, but U.S. Rep. Rick Nolan, who represents Minnesota’s Iron Range, said company executives told him that about 200 jobs are to be restored. 

"Keetac's reopening is wonderful news for the Iron Range,” Nolan said in a statement. 

“This accomplishment is the result of a team effort with the mining companies, steelworkers, the Obama administration and those of us in Washington who have championed the cause of securing high tariffs and taxes on subpar, low-quality steel subsidized by foreign governments and dumped into our market by trade-cheater nations. These high tariffs and taxes have already shown great results for our American mining industry, and they will continue to improve market conditions over the next five years.”

U. S. Steel didn’t say to whom it would be selling pellets, but a company official told the Duluth News Tribune newspaper that one of them is Stelco, U.S. Steel’s former Canadian subsidiary.

“The third-party pellet sales include supplying U. S. Steel’s former Canadian operations,’’ U. S. Steel spokeswoman Erin DiPietro told the newspaper. “Outside of the agreement with our former Canadian operations, we do not discuss our commercial relationships related to other potential third-party pellet sales.” 

The Keetac plant has an annual production capacity of about six million net tons. 

The News Tribune has more on the story here.