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Jan 31, 2009 1:42 pm US/Central
Mesabi Nugget Construction On Schedule In NE Minn.
HOYT LAKES, Minn. (AP) ―
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Mesabi Nugget is expected to produce high volumes of 97 percent-pure iron nuggets through a process that is advertised as both environmentally friendly and energy efficient, according to officials at SDI and Kobe.
AP
Despite two cold and snowy Minnesota winters in a row, work on the $250 million Mesabi Nugget project near Hoyt Lakes remains on schedule.
So far this winter, crews have only lost about seven days of work -- four of those coming in mid-January when temperatures dipped into the 30-to-40-below-zero range.
Construction workers from a half-dozen firms have been working 10- and 12-hour days and sometimes on Saturdays to make sure everything is ready to roll by late summer, when officials hope to begin producing and shipping pig iron.
"By August we should be up and running and making nuggets," said Steve Rutherford, operations manager.
Steel Dynamics Inc. of Indiana and Kobe Steel Ltd. broke ground in January 2007 on what they are calling the world's first full-scale demonstration plant using a pioneering process developed by Kobe Steel. And, despite the recession, the project is going ahead.
Mesabi Nugget is expected to produce high volumes of 97 percent-pure iron nuggets through a process that is advertised as both environmentally friendly and energy efficient, according to officials at SDI and Kobe.
Rutherford said when construction began the first order of business was to build the foundations for the large rotary hearth furnace instrumental in creating the pig iron nuggets.
By April 2007, construction started on the shells of the buildings on site, including a balling and drying facility.
"The goal was to get everything boxed up before winter," Rutherford said.
This past summer the goal was to get major infrastructure like power, natural gas and a rail line in place before the holidays. For the most part, that was completed.
Rutherford said that one major piece of the puzzle has been to bring power to the site. Even though Minnesota Power fell behind a bit because some crews had to be shifted to deal with a problem in southern Minnesota, the utility work should be complete by Feb. 1, he said.
For Rutherford, the changing economic conditions in the U.S. and the world were more of a concern than the wintry weather.
"I was nervous about whether they would crank us down or not," he said.
That never happened. In fact, SDI of Indiana, the parent corporation of Mesabi Nugget, looked at all of its projects for 2008 and decided Mesabi Nugget was the most important, Rutherford said.
At the Hoyt Lakes site, the pig iron nuggets, made using iron concentrate, will be created through a complex heating process and then shipped by rail to SDI to be used to create high-quality steel.
Mesabi Nugget will produce about 500,000 tons of the material annually when the plant is up and running. Officials have said that if the first module is successful, two or three additional plants could be built on site.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
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