A payment of $7.25 million made last Thursday by Mesabi Metallics Company LLC to the State of Minnesota brings to $26.7 million the total Mesabi has paid the state, Itasca County and the City of Nashwauk during 2023.

Since 2020, Mesabi has paid these agencies over $69 million.

Over those three years, over $65 million supported Itasca County, DEED and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Mesabi Metallics has also paid approximately $4 million to Itasca County in the form of property taxes since 2020.

“People tend to think development is something you only see. You can see it at the site, but Mesabi also has been hard at work developing this project through all of these payments. $69 million is no small change, it’s a lot of money!” says Nashwauk City Councilor Greg Heyblom.

“Such consistent payments and repayments further demonstrate Mesabi’s commitment—and financial wherewithal—to develop and open by mid-2025 the Iron Range’s first new iron mine and taconite palletization plant in more than 30 years,” says Mesabi Metallics President and Chief Operation Officer Larry Sutherland.  “So does the development progress made on site through 2023, and the 70 union trade workers continuing on it through the winter months. We are working on the concentrator building.”

In 2022, Mesabi Metallics’ parent company, Essar Group, repositioned itself financially in order to invest with renewed vigor starting in 2022. It completed a debt repayment process through which about $25 billion was repaid to all its financial institutions, paving the way for additional investments into its portfolio companies such as Mesabi Metallics. The debt repayment effectively made Essar Group debt-free from Indian banks and financial institutions. Armed with a much stronger balance sheet, Essar is now looking at reinvesting in building new assets and strengthening its existing operations using the latest in carbon neutral new-age technologies.

Once pellet plant and mining operations begin, the project has the potential to produce annual revenue of $17 million through taconite production tax, $11 million through occupation tax, and $12 million through taconite royalties if State taconite is mined benefitting Itasca County, local communities, and school districts.

With over $1.6 billion dollars invested to date, the project stands as one of the largest private investments made in the history of Minnesota. Mesabi Metallics is the only investor to have committed to a large capacity greenfield taconite pelletization and mining project investment on the Iron Range in the last 50 years. The last taconite project to commence operations on the Iron Range was in 1977.

Another $3.6 billion dollars of investment is expected for future phases Sutherland says the company is committed to completing the project. He sees an incredible opportunity for Itasca County, the Iron Range, and the State of Minnesota on the horizon. “Mesabi Metallics’ future looks very bright as we continue to study a value-added component for moving our plan for a high-grade pellet facility into the first ever Green Steel initiative making liquid steel right here in Minnesota,” said Sutherland.

The company is also making more donations to the community. They recently sent out a statement about a $15,000 donation to the Nashwauk Police Department to help outfit their new squad car.