Cliffs to Reduce Iron Ore Production


Cliffs Natural Resources’ Northshore Mining operations in Minnesota (shown here), along with its Empire mine in
Michigan, are included in the company’s plans to reduce iron ore production.
Cliffs Natural Resources announced on November 19 that it is delaying portions of its Bloom Lake mine Phase II expansion in Quebec and idling some production at two of its U.S. iron ore operations, Northshore Mining in Minnesota and the Empire mine in Michigan. “These production decreases are driven by increased iron ore pricing volatility and lower North American steel-making utilization rates,” the company said.

At Bloom Lake, Cliffs is suspending some components of the Phase II expan-sion, including completion of the concentra-tor and load-out facility. Construction relat-ed to these activities has stopped, and third-party contractors have been demobilized.

Pre-stripping activities to develop the working faces of Bloom Lake’s orebody, sup-porting both Phase I and Phase II mine devel-opment, are continuing. Cliffs is also contin-uing its environmental projects related to completing Bloom Lake’s water and tailings management system and ore storage facility.

Depending on market conditions, Cliffs now expects to complete Bloom Lake Phase II construction in early 2014.

The construction delay lowers Cliffs’ 2013 estimated eastern Canadian iron ore sales volumes to 9 million to 10 million mt from the previous expectation of 13 million to 14 million mt. Bloom Lake’s Phase I facility is expected to produce about 7 million mt during the year.

In the United States, effective January 5, 2013, Cliffs will idle two of the four pro-duction lines at Northshore Mining. The company will also temporarily idle produc-tion at its Empire mine beginning in the second quarter of 2013 in the form of an extended summer shutdown. These pro-duction curtailments will impact approxi-mately 125 employees at Northshore and 500 employees at Empire.

Cliffs’ full-year 2013 expected sales vol-umes for its U.S. iron ore operations remain unchanged at 19 million to 20 million mt.

As featured in Womp 2012 Vol 12 - www.womp-int.com