Minnesota’s mining boom
November 22, 07 by TheFleetIf you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!
By Telis Demos | Fortune/CNN Money
Now Minnesota’s mines are in demand. “Every single plant is going max, pedal to the metal,” says Dan Jordan of the state’s Iron Range Resources agency.
Production on the Mesabi Range — a two-mile-wide, 125-mile long vein of open-pit mines near Lake Superior — has increased by about 25% since 2001, supplying about two-thirds of U.S. iron-ore needs. (For more, see “The New Iron Age”) Mining revenues are up 30%, to $1.6 billion a year, and could double if planned new mines come online.
A flood of foreign capital has funded the renaissance. China’s Laiwu Steel and the Netherlands’ ArcelorMittal, the world’s biggest steel company, bought mines from bankrupt U.S. firms in 2003 and 2005.
More recently, three small U.S. mining startups have raised capital on the London and Toronto stock exchanges to finance exploration for new copper and nickel mines in the Duluth Complex, a region neighboring the Mesabi, considered the world’s largest untapped source of those metals.
“Back in 2001, you couldn’t raise a dime out here,” says Franconia Minerals CEO Brian Gavin, who plans to open a Duluth mine by 2012.
