U.S. Steel Corp. announced Wednesday that it has shelved a proposed expansion of its Keetac taconite operations in Keewatin.
The proposed $300 million expansion would have nearly doubled production to about 9.6 million tons of taconite iron ore pellets annually, up from about 5.2 million tons today, and added 100 new jobs at the facility that now employs about 400 people
The expansion, first announced in 2008, had been heralded as another sign of growth in Minnesota’s taconite industry. It would have been the largest taconite plant expansion in more than 30 years on the Iron Range.
The company received state permits for the project in 2011 and would have been required to meet the state’s 10-parts-per-million standard for sulfate in wastewater, a rule that has not been enforced, no later than Aug. 17, 2019
But corporate officials said the extra iron ore isn’t needed at this point. The company on Wednesday also scrubbed plans for two new modules at its Gary Works blast furnace facility in Indiana that would have boosted its steelmaking capacity.
“The decisions to stop further efforts relative to these investments represent another step in our transformation to earn the right to grow,” Mario Longhi, U.S. Steel president and CEO, said in a prepared statement. “These strategic decisions allow us to redirect funding to projects to further develop advanced high strength steels for our automotive customers, premium connections for our energy market customers, and capital expenditures to update and modernize our operations.”
