Cliffs Mining in Silver Bay partially resumes operation

SILVER BAY, MN. (Northern News Now) - After idling for almost one year Cleveland-Cliffs has partially resumed operations at its Northshore Mining facilities.

Last May, Cliffs laid off more than 400 workers at its iron ore mine in Babbitt and pellet plant in Silver Bay.

The company claimed the idle was due to decreased demand for product and a royalty dispute.

In a company call Tuesday morning, Cliffs’ CEO said higher levels of steel production led to the partial restart earlier this month.

But, mining operations won’t be back to full capacity any time soon.

”We will continue to treat that facility as our swing operation, and at this time, we still do not expect to operate Northshore in full anytime this year,” Cleveland-Cliffs CEO Lourenco Goncalves said.

Some of the hundreds of laid-off workers were brought back in February.

How many were brought back is unknown.

Workers impacted by the layoffs had their unemployment benefits extended by a bipartisan bill that was passed in January.

Those benefits are set to expire in April.

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