• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

U.S. Steel Board Members to Visit Company's Largest Mine

Posted on: Wednesday, 20 July 2005, 21:00 CDT

Jul. 21--U.S. Steel's top executives will be visiting North America's largest taconite plant and holding meetings there, on northern Minnesota's Iron Range.

The 12-member U.S. Steel board of directors on Monday and Tuesday will tour the West Pit, processing plant and administrative offices at the corporation's Minntac Mine in Mountain Iron, said spokesman John Armstrong. A regular board meeting also will be held.

"I'm sure they're very excited to have them up there to show off the plant," Armstrong said. "Minntac is an incredible asset for us because it gives us control of one our most important resources -- iron ore."

The tour will include a visit to crushing, concentrating, agglomerating and office facilities and possibly a ride in one of the mine's huge production trucks. Weather conditions permitting, board members also could see a blast, a massive explosion that fragments millions of tons of low-grade taconite rock from the mine pit.

For workers and managers at Minntac Mine, the visit is a rare opportunity to showcase the 15-million-ton-per-year facility. The last time board members visited Minntac was in 1998.

"They go to all of our plants periodically," Armstrong said. "It just happens to be Minntac's turn again. We think that having board members visit our facilities makes them better board members."

On the heels of Pilotac, an experimental taconite plant once located at the site, Minntac in 1968 began producing taconite pellets.

Since then, Minntac has produced more than 415 million tons of taconite pellets.

"It makes sense for every corporation to make sure its board of directors understands all aspects of a company's operation," said Frank Ongaro Jr., president of the Iron Mining Association of Minnesota. "Having this board or any other board visit Minnesota certainly doesn't hurt the visibility of the industry."

Board members don't intend to visit newly acquired Keewatin Taconite, a 5.4 million-ton-per-year taconite plant in Keewatin, Minn.

-----

To see more of the Duluth News-Tribune, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.DuluthSuperior.com.

Copyright (c) 2005, Duluth News-Tribune, Minn.

Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News.

For information on republishing this content, contact us at (800) 661-2511 (U.S.), (213) 237-4914 (worldwide), fax (213) 237-6515, or e-mail reprints@krtinfo.com.

X,

Source: Duluth News-Tribune (Duluth, Minn.)

More News in this Category