Demand for U.S. Minerals on the Rise
Minerals are vital to manufacturing products and technologies that propel the U.S. economy, fostering innovation and supporting U.S. industrial competitiveness. A growing global population, and development of new technologies and products that rely on greater combinations of minerals, have increased demand for raw materials.
U of M Officials Seek Money from State for Mining Research
Duluth News Tribune
John Myers
Frank Ongaro, executive director of Mining Minnesota, the copper-nickel industry group, said he’s heard few details on the initiative.
“We’ll be watching and paying attention,” Ongaro said. “But it strikes me that if the university can fund and support research aimed at bettering the state’s mining industry, at the same time the mining industry is giving so much back to the state, that’s a good thing all around.”
Weberg said he expects the initiative to act as a problem solver for the industry as well as help allay fears of mining critics and skeptics.
“What can we do to make Minnesota mining more efficient; to reduce its footprint on the land; to reduce its energy use and carbon footprint? What can we do to reduce waste so that less raw material has to be mined?” Weberg said.
Read more: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/content/u-m-officials-seek-money-state-mining-research
MPR News
Martin Moylan
Duluth Metals, the firm that’s been pushing to build a copper-nickel mine in northeast Minnesota, said Monday it is selling its operations to Chilean mining giant Antofagasta PLC for about $85 million.
Antofagasta and Duluth Metals have been partners in Twin Metals Minnesota, which wants to build a massive underground mine near Ely, Minnesota, just a few miles south of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness.
The region may hold what could be the world’s largest untapped source of copper and other precious metals valued at perhaps $100 billion.
Read more: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/11/03/duluth-metals-sale-to-antofagasta
‘We Have a Wealth of Resources … We’re All Pretty Blessed’
Mesabi Daily News
Bill Hanna
Mining is in Kelly Osborne’s DNA — and that now includes his new adventure as CEO of Twin Metals Minnesota.
“I’m personally very excited to be part of the Twin Metals team and to be involved in a project like this,” he said during an interview last July after he was named to his new position.
The Twin Metals project, within the vast mineral-rich Duluth Complex on the Iron Range, would develop an underground mine to extract copper/nickel/precious (strategic) metals.
It has the potential create thousands of direct jobs, many more indirect spin-off positions and more than 2 million hours of construction.
Prefeasibility Study Confirms Project Holds Major Job Creation
Mesabi Daily News
Opinion: Kelly Osborne (Twin Metals Minnesota CEO)
Over the past two years, Twin Metals Minnesota (TMM) has been conducting a Prefeasibility Study (PFS) for our proposed underground copper-nickel mining project in northeast Minnesota. In late August, Duluth Metals Limited, the majority partner in the TMM joint venture, released highlights from the PFS Technical Report, which confirms that the TMM Project offers an extraordinary job creation and economic development opportunity for the region and the entire state.
The TMM Project is among the world’s most promising copper-nickel mining developments due to the magnitude of Minnesota’s mineral resource and the project’s location in a region that has a strong mining history, world-class labor force, and extensive mining infrastructure, including existing roads, rail lines, ports, power and water supplies.
The competitive advantages Minnesota offers are key to the TMM Project’s projected long-term economic success.
Mining Jobs are Great Jobs
Mesabi Daily News
Opinion: Lory Fedo (Board Member, Jobs for Minnesotans)
Your conversations are important and all of us, together, need to unite and fight hard for the economic future of ourselves and our children. Whether we are mining iron ore, copper, palladium or nickel, mining is and will be a huge part of OUR future — that is worth fighting for.
As you are talking to others here are more FACTS to share:
- According to the U. S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, today the average mining wage job is $83,359. Compare this number to the average annual wage for all industries in the US, which is $50,475.
- Every American depends on more than 100 pounds of minerals per day.
- Metals, both ferrous and non-ferrous, are essential for our modern way of life.
- Mining will happen — the questions are by who, where, how and meeting what standards?
The lengthy permitting process for new mines in Minnesota stonewalls investment and simply takes too long. It has cost more than $70 million and taken more than nine years to date for PolyMet’s environmental review. And it’s still not done. We can and need to do better.
DNR: PolyMet EIS Will be Completed by Spring
Duluth News Tribune
John Myers
Minnesota Department of Natural Resources Commissioner Tom Landwehr on Monday said he expects the agency’s work on the PolyMet
It’s the most specific deadline so far in the ongoing regulatory saga over what would be Minnesota’s first copper mining and processing operation.
Landwehr made the comment at a gathering of Iron Range school and municipal officials with top officials of the Minnesota DNR, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency and the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board.
Read more: http://www.duluthnewstribune.com/content/dnr-polymet-eis-will-be-completed-spring
MINE V: Coming Oct. 29
Mesabi Daily News
Bill Hanna
We are now into our second year of the MINE project, with MINE V to be published on Wednesday, Oct. 29. That will put us pretty much on a quarterly schedule for publication of the special editions that tell the fascinating story — past, present and in the future — of the mining industry that is so important to the Iron Range, state and nation.
he project, which is a collaboration of the Adams Publishing Group’s newspaper, online and video publications of the Mesabi Daily News, Hibbing Daily Tribune, Grand Rapids Herald-Review and Chisholm Tribune Press, focuses on the No. 1 economic driver of the region.
Mining has so greatly impacted all aspects of our personal lives and our communities for more than 100 years, and is poised for a bold future of many, many more years to come.
Mining Expo Draws Employers, Hopeful Employees
The third annual Iron Range Miners Expo provided a good opportunity for potential workers to meet companies that could become employers.
The Minnesota Discovery Center hosts the event, which had 80 different booths this year. Mining companies, equipment suppliers and engineering firms all had their best foot forward.
Read more: http://www.wdio.com/article/stories/S3557591.shtml?cat=10363
Copper-Nickel Mining Could Move South of the Iron Range
MPR News
Dan Kraker
If Minnesota enjoys another mining boom, it may not be limited to the Iron Range.
Although towns like Babbitt and Hoyt Lakes are on the leading edge of the current wave of copper-nickel mine development, mining companies also are exploring much farther south, in an area without a rich mining history.
Such explorations have brought workers about an hour west of Duluth to a swampland just outside of Tamarack, population 94.
Read more: http://www.mprnews.org/story/2014/09/09/tamarack-mine