Boatnerd Discussion Forum

Some other interesting info.

With trumps tariffs on Canadian Steel has also affected and indirectly laid off Americans, and thus fast tracked the transition over to scrap Electric Arc Furnaces from using Blast Furnaces. The portion of sales of steel that sold to USA was a small amount as compared to dumping by other countries that do not contain anything of American.

Algoma purchased many American products and then sold them back as an assembled product back, employing Americans in the process. Algoma also sold specialized military hardened steel to USA.

At Algoma, Americans were employed as local suppliers such as;
Pellet mine workers, (note: Algoma's 50% share ownership of their mines were sold to Cliffs during a restructuring to repay debt.), Dollomite mine workers, Limestone mine workers, Coal mine workers, Rail Car companies, Shipping companies, and many others.

Hence to be fair, the tariffs placed on Algoma should have set lower since this situation is unique unlike China steel, and these American jobs could have been still in place until the fall of next year.

[quote=Sandpiper565 post_id=275903 time=1791154178 user_id=21264]
is this also some form of election propaganda / promise mixed in?

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That's kind of just assumed.

[quote=Guest post_id=275885 time=1790823889]
[size=85][size=50]I do recall that in the early-1990s iron ore pellets from the Mesabi Range were railed to Geneva Steel in Utah by Southern Pacific via the former Rock Island Spine Line, without any movement by self-unloaders for part of the trip. I would think that the new mill steel mill in Iowa will use a similar all-rail movement.[/size][/size]
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Rail would be the cheapest for them. At Algoma, we would receive and dump 24/7 pellet rail cars from Marquette. There were three trains of 75 cars in motion, and the trains going across the Internal bridge would pull up to 45 cars across at a time. On average we would dump 25-30 a 12hr shift. The ratio used (which could vary weekly) of Rail Pellets was usually 40% and then 60% for Freighters that unloaded regularly during the open shipping season at the Dock building a winter stockpile. At a iron production rate of 7,000-8,000 tons a day at the blast furnace would chew up a freighter's dock load of 20,000+ tons in a few days. If empty cars were left standing around not being sent back quickly, you were penalized and had to pay extra to meet deadlines.

For the trip to Iowa would require far more trains and rail cars in both directions.

Rail cars could be auto unloaded at Iowa, by we manually dumped them (open with sledge hammers, close with long bars) the doors by hand. Cars in winter were frozen big time and you drop on top of the rail car a shaker, to shake the pellets and chunks out. Plus use natural gas lances to preheat the doors to open and to melt the frozen pellet chunks that were mixed with melted snow. It was a pain as snow filled the empty cars going back and then they dumped hot pellets onto the show creating ice chunks. The bigger ice chunks would not fit into the ground hopper grates, onto the conveyor system creating a big mess and you had to sledge hammer the chunks into smaller pieces to fit. The cars could be remain frozen for days/weeks on end.

Delivery by boat was far better, as just the top of the dock piles would freeze with snow but the majority of the pellet pile underneath was clean and the ore bridge operators with their large buckets would grab the top sheets of ice chunks and drop them from a high height to break them up before loading the bin cars and then into hopper and the conveyor system. Often the ice chunks when traversing across different direction belts would jam in the junctions, plugging them and shutting down the conveyor system. A radio call was sent out, "Who ya going call", "Chunk Busters" and those guys would go out and then clean them out, using bars, hammers, and steam lances, many times a shift.

Essar's track record how they purchased Algoma and then built a pellet plant up the range around Hibbing, planning to feed Algoma and not using Cliff's mines, then going bankrupt with both companies, should really kind of caution you. Don't count your breath at may/could happen in Iowa.

Question: Why wasn't an existing "America steel mill" simply expanded instead of building a foreign controlled Indian steel company? Is Essar simply looking for a product purchaser for their pellets. They also like to use money that is available, before using their own. Bet ya, allot of guys are angered up north about this and is this also some form of election propaganda / promise mixed in?

Who Knows?

Wouldn't Cliff's expressed opposition to this plant if they thought it was actually going to be built. It would be owned by a non-US company.

Yes. Essar Steel had a very complicated history of not paying their debts. They stiffed most every business and government involved with the plant and mine construction. Ultimately, they filed bankruptcy, but years later they have started catching up on debt mostly helped by inflation. But maybe now they have new investors.

Another false claim from Washington regarding steel facility proposed for Iowa. No land purchases have been recorded or permits being issued. It seems no foundational facts support this claim. As of yet.

[quote=Darryl1 post_id=275889 time=1790946972]
Per Guest's comment...

It appears to be reminiscent of the Fox chip factory promo that was to built in Wisconsin.

With so much capacity available at existing steel mills, and the propensity of the industry to bring in foreign steel, even for high profile projects, there is reasons to wonder about this.

But, time will tell.
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You might be right.
Isn't this the same company (Essar) that recently had to refinance its debt and "rationalize" the size of its operation?

Local Iowa Report Provides Scathing Fact-Check of Trump’s New Steel Mill: ‘That’s Not True’. https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/local-iowa-report-provides-scathing-184552150.html

Per Guest's comment...

It appears to be reminiscent of the Fox chip factory promo that was to built in Wisconsin.

With so much capacity available at existing steel mills, and the propensity of the industry to bring in foreign steel, even for high profile projects, there is reasons to wonder about this.

But, time will tell.

I'd be very surprised if this mill ever gets built.

I do recall that in the early-1990s iron ore pellets from the Mesabi Range were railed to Geneva Steel in Utah by Southern Pacific via the former Rock Island Spine Line, without any movement by self-unloaders for part of the trip. I would think that the new mill steel mill in Iowa will use a similar all-rail movement.

[quote="William Lafferty" post_id=275875 time=1790708343 user_id=131]
The plant is to be in Lee County, and I assume in the northern portion along the Mississippi since that is where more open land is available. The mine is at Nashwuk, near Hibbing. A water route to the plant would necessitate rail to Superior (Canadian National?) for loading on self unloaders. These would unload, ship-to-barge behind the breakwater at South Chicago or a dedicated facility on the Calumet River for eventual transshipment to barge. Barges would then have to traverse the Cal-Sag to Lemont to join the Illinois and on to the Mississippi, involving assembling a new tow at Joliet since the Cal-Sag can only handle at most a few barges at a time with small towboats. That tow would proceed to the Mississippi but be very far south from Lee County, about 200 miles, since the confluence of the illinois and Mississippi is at Grafton, Illinois, in essence St. Louis. Another water route would be the pellets taken by rail to St. Paul for loading and a straight shot down the Mississippi by barge. I'm too lazy to investigate rail connections between Hibbing and St. Paul but I assume BNSF would be used or a combination of roads. As already discussed, though, BNSF is a straight shot following the Mississippi from St. Paul to Iowa, running in virtually all weather, so this seems like a much more likely route, which would please Warren Buffet in his retirement.
[/quote]

IMO you are correct -
year around shipping - no need to stockpile
Only handle the nugget once limiting damage
With coal disappearing, railroads will love a new cargo

It’s operating and producing nuggets

I haven't heard for a long time of any news of what's going on with the HBI plant in Toledo. Any info?

The story says they plan to expand the DRI plant in Minnesota to produce HBI products. I would assume that is what will feed the mill.

The plant is to be in Lee County, and I assume in the northern portion along the Mississippi since that is where more open land is available. The mine is at Nashwuk, near Hibbing. A water route to the plant would necessitate rail to Superior (Canadian National?) for loading on self unloaders. These would unload, ship-to-barge behind the breakwater at South Chicago or a dedicated facility on the Calumet River for eventual transshipment to barge. Barges would then have to traverse the Cal-Sag to Lemont to join the Illinois and on to the Mississippi, involving assembling a new tow at Joliet since the Cal-Sag can only handle at most a few barges at a time with small towboats. That tow would proceed to the Mississippi but be very far south from Lee County, about 200 miles, since the confluence of the illinois and Mississippi is at Grafton, Illinois, in essence St. Louis. Another water route would be the pellets taken by rail to St. Paul for loading and a straight shot down the Mississippi by barge. I'm too lazy to investigate rail connections between Hibbing and St. Paul but I assume BNSF would be used or a combination of roads. As already discussed, though, BNSF is a straight shot following the Mississippi from St. Paul to Iowa, running in virtually all weather, so this seems like a much more likely route, which would please Warren Buffet in his retirement.

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/
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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/