US Steel Upgrading MN Mill to Produce Specialty Pellets

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — U.S. Steel plans to spend $150 million to upgrade one of its two Minnesota mines to produce a new kind of iron ore feedstock now used in the majority of the nation’s steel mills.

The specialty “DR-grade” pellets are used to make a purer form of iron that is used to feed smaller steel mills, known as electric arc furnaces. The so-called “mini mills” now produce more than 70% of the steel in the U.S.

Most of the iron ore produced in Minnesota still goes to the big blast furnaces around the Great Lakes. With regulatory permitting, U.S. Steel would begin the upgrade this fall, either at Minntac in Mountain Iron, or at Keetac in Keewatin.