Iron Ore Facilities

Raw Material Operations

Hibbing Taconite

Hibbing Taconite Company produces about 7.8 million tons of standard iron-bearing pellets and mines about 29 million tons of ore annually. The pellets are shipped to Cleveland-Cliffs’ facility in Burns Harbor, Indiana.

Hibbing operations consist of an open-pit truck and shovel mine and a concentrator that utilizes single-stage crushing, autogenous mills, and magnetic separation to produce a magnetite concentrate. The concentrate is then delivered to an on-site pellet plant. From the site, pellets are transported by BNSF rail to a ship loading port at Superior, Wisconsin.

Raw Material Operations

United Taconite

The United Taconite mine is located on Minnesota’s Mesabi Iron Range in and around the city of Eveleth, Minnesota. The taconite is mined and then transported approximately 10 miles by rail to its processing facility in Forbes, Minnesota. Cleveland-Cliffs owns 100% of the United Taconite mine and leases 100% of the mineral rights. 

Operations consist of an open-pit truck and shovel mine, where ore is crushed in two stages before traveling by rail to the plant site.  An additional stage of crushing occurs at the plant site before the ore is sent to the concentrator. The concentrator utilizes rod mills and magnetic separation to produce a magnetite concentrate, which is delivered to the pellet plant. From the site, pellets are transported by rail to a ship loading port at Duluth, Minnesota.

Raw Material Operations

Northshore Mining

The Northshore Mining facility, which originally operated under Reserve Mining Company, was the first taconite processing facility in North America. Northshore Mining’s Peter Mitchell Mine is located near Babbitt, on the northeastern end of the Mesabi Iron Range, and the taconite is transported 47 miles by rail to the processing facility in Silver Bay, near Lake Superior. Cleveland-Cliffs leases 100% of the mineral rights.

Operations consist of an open-pit truck and shovel mine where two stages of crushing occur before the ore is transported along a wholly-owned rail line to the plant in Silver Bay. At the plant, two additional stages of crushing occur before the ore is sent to the concentrator. The concentrator utilizes rod mills and magnetic separation to produce a magnetite concentrate, which is delivered to the pellet plant located on-site. The plant has a ship loading port located on Lake Superior.

Cleveland-Cliffs recently completed a $100 million expansion at its Northshore Mining operation to support large-scale commercial production of DR-grade pellets. With its completion, Northshore Mining is now the only U.S.-based iron ore processing facility to produce low silica DR-grade pellets. The Northshore operation is producing DR-grade pellet feedstock inventory for Cleveland-Cliffs' Direct Reduction Plant in Toledo, Ohio.

Raw Material Operations

Minorca Mine

Minorca Mine is located near Virginia, Minnesota, in the center of the Mesabi Iron Range. It is one of the company’s leading sources of iron ore for operations in the United States. Iron ore is a major raw material required in the manufacturing of steel. Iron-bearing pellets are shipped to Cleveland-Cliffs’ Indiana Harbor facility in East Chicago, Indiana. In 2019, Minorca supplied about 50% of Indiana Harbor’s No. 7 blast furnace’s pelletized iron requirements. 

Raw Material Operations

Tilden Mine

Tilden Mine is located on the Marquette Iron Range in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, approximately five miles south of Ishpeming. Cleveland-Cliffs became sole owner of the mine in 2017.

Tilden’s operations consist of an open-pit truck and shovel mine, a concentrator that utilizes single-stage crushing, autogenous (AG) mills, magnetite separation, and floatation to produce hematite and magnetite concentrates that are then supplied to the on-site pellet plant. Pellets are transported by LS&I rail to port at Marquette.