Boatnerd Discussion Forum

I'm confused. In the Minnesota Public Radio story (referenced on the Boatnerd news page) it mentions hot briquetted iron (HBI). Is that what they plan to use as feedstock for the proposed Iowa mill, or is that an independent proposal? The reason I ask is that a lot less HBI (by volume) would need to be shipped than if they plan to ship pellets. HBI is typically 90 to 94% iron while pellets are usually in the 60% range. That greatly affects the volume (and tonnage) to be shipped and may sway the decision as to what mode of transit is used.

You'd have to think rail is the plan. BNSF runs pretty much door-to-door from the iron range to southeast Iowa as long as they have the capacity. Or maybe have a trans load facility direct from BNSF to barges on the upper Mississippi if rail capacity is an issue south of Minneapolis.

[quote="Ohio Bob" post_id=275864 time=1790610652 user_id=155]
An interesting news story hit this morning of a new Mesabi Metallics mill opening in Iowa. It is noted "It's location near the Mississippi River would allow Mesabi to ship iron ore from its Minnesota Mine to the Iowa facility." Assuming that would be by rail or is there profit in running shuttle runs down to Gary or other, then barging down the river? https://www.newsmax.com/us/donald-trump-iowa-15-billion/2026/09/28/id/1270912/
[/quote]

I tend to believe that the ore will go by rail to the mill and will bypass any movement on the Great Lakes. I don't foresee any possibility of shipping the ore from the mine to a loading port on Lake Superior to be moved down to lower Lake Michigan and then transported back across land by rail over to Iowa. This would seem to be an overly complex and inefficient method of moving the ore more directly from upper Minnesota to eastern Iowa but I don't know much about how the rail lines are able to handle the volume of 10 millions tons of annual steel production. But as I live in the region, I'm also unsure of how the current infrastructure will handle this as it is.

An interesting news story hit this morning of a new Mesabi Metallics mill opening in Iowa. It is noted "It's location near the Mississippi River would allow Mesabi to ship iron ore from its Minnesota Mine to the Iowa facility." Assuming that would be by rail or is there profit in running shuttle runs down to Gary or other, then barging down the river? https://www.newsmax.com/us/donald-trump-iowa-15-billion/2026/09/28/id/1270912/