AMFA October Meeting

AMFA Luncheon Meeting on October 26 in Eveleth; tour US Steel: Minntac. ** Attendees will meet at BoomTown in Eveleth at 10am to depart for US Steel: Minntac by bus. 

NOTE: Access to the gated entrance at US Steel: Minntac is very restrictive. All those who wish to attend the tour must take the bus departing from BoomTown at 10am.  Following the tour, the bus will return to BoomTown for lunch and the general meeting. 

Luncheon Speaker: Roy Smith, Department of Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation
The Department of Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation is a State of Minnesota economic development agency that reinvests local taconite production taxes back into northeastern Minnesota businesses and communities in order to strengthen and diversify the economy. Our mission is to invest resources to foster vibrant growth and economic prosperity in northeastern Minnesota.

Iron Range Resources & Rehabilitation provides vital funding, including low or no interest loans, grants and loan guarantees for businesses relocating or expanding in the region. Additionally, a variety of grants are available to local units of government, education institutions, and nonprofits that promote workforce development and sustainable communities. 


TOUR: United States Steel: Minntac 
U. S. Steel’s Mining Solutions produces high-quality taconite pellets for use in blast furnace operations. Located in the ore-rich Mesabi Iron Range in northern Minnesota, our Minntac and Keetac mines give us up to 22 million tons of pellets annually, plus about 1.3 million-ton annual capacity through joint-venture ownership in a mine in Hibbing, Minnesota.

Minntac began production of taconite pellets in 1967 and is the largest taconite producer in North America with an annual production of up to 15 million long tons of pellets. Low-grade taconite iron ore of the Biwabik Iron Formation is extracted from a connected series of open pit mines stretching over an area of approximately eight miles long and up to a mile wide. The mined ore is then sent to the processing plant where it is crushed into a fine powder, concentrated by magnetic separation and flotation, formed into marble-sized balls, and then heated in large furnaces to form hardened pellets that are shipped to US Steel-owned blast furnaces in Indiana.