The Minnesota executive council has approved the leases for more than 2 600 acres of iron-ore at the Nashwauk mine site, resolving years of uncertainty regarding Hibbing Taconite’s mine life, US-based Cleveland-Cliffs said on Thursday.
The approval is a final action and Cleveland-Cliffs has now assumed these leases.
“Cleveland-Cliffs will immediately begin the work necessary to develop this quality orebody as an extension of Hibbing Taconite. The state’s mineral leases, combined with our own private mineral holdings at Nashwauk acquired by Cleveland-Cliffs in 2017, will provide more than two decades of additional ore reserves for Hibbing Taconite, preserving hundreds of good paying union jobs, and ensuring continued supply of iron-ore pellets for Cleveland-Cliffs’ steel mills,” said president and CEO Lourenco Goncalves.