Taconite Boom

In the drive to expand industrial production, the Defense Production Administration last week okayed the biggest single quick-tax-write-off in its history: a $298 million project for Minnesota's Erie Mining Co. Most businessmen had never heard of the company and they were baffled by its purpose, which is to "beneficiate" an ore named taconite.

Erie Mining is owned by Bethlehem Steel and Youngstown Sheet & Tube Co., and the U.S. will soon hear a lot more about taconite, an iron-bearing rock which spreads over much of Minnesota's Mesabi and adjoining ranges. Though Mesabi's rich ore is rapidly being exhausted, there is a vast supply of the inferior (about 30% iron) taconite ore. Big steel producers are now committed to spend $1 billion within the next six years building plants to turn taconite into usable iron ore.

This tremendous new industry is based on long research by the University of Minnesota led by Professor Edward W. Davis. The researchers perfected a method of pulverizing the hard rock of magnetic taconite, extracting the iron by magnets, then rolling it into pellets ready for the blast furnace.

Plants for Pellets. So far, Erie Mining's Aurora, Minn, plant is the only one producing the walnut-sized pellets in commercial quantities. U.S. Steel, which has felt no rush for substitutes because it owns the biggest share of the remaining rich ores, has been content to build two pilot plants. But Republic Steel and Armco, not as well supplied, 18 months ago went into taconites in a big way through their joint subsidiary, Reserve Mining Co. (TIME, Oct. 2, 1950).

Within three years, Reserve will be producing 2,500,000 tons of ore yearly from taconites, and its ultimate goal is 10 million tons. To achieve it, Reserve plans to spend $260 million. It is building two new towns for 5,000 workers, a 40-mile railway to haul taconite from Babbitt, Minn, to the bigger plant at Beaver Bay. It is linking two Lake Superior islands by breakwaters to handle the loading of finished ore.

Quality at a Price. Erie Mining's plans are even bigger: a 5,000,000-ton production rate by 1957, and an eventual expansion to 10.5 million tons. It will build a huge, ore-concentrating plant four miles from its present Aurora plant, a 60-mile railroad down to two islands near Schroeder (on Lake Superior's north shore), and its own harbor for loading the pellets into ore boats.

All this construction will make taconite ore costlier than the ore now being used. But since the processed pellets contain 60% iron, v. 50% or less for rich ore, pig-iron cost may not be appreciably greater. Moreover, taconite pellets will make better iron, because their quality is more even.

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