Year-old Prairie River Minerals will build a multimillion-dollar ore-processing plant near Coleraine, Minn., on the site of a rail facility once owned by Magnetation.
The Iron Range project will be at Magnetation's Jessie Loadout Facility. Prairie River Minerals (PRM) — whose original partners included former Minnesota legislator Tom Anzelc — was the approved buyer in June of the facility out of bankruptcy court.
Anzelc is now a consultant to the group.
Construction starts this month and is expected to wrap up in the fall. Called a demonstration plant, the facility will process leftover iron ore waste-tailings so they can be used by steel plants.
"We'll bring good paying union jobs to this region, be environmentally friendly, and benefit our local communities and the state of Minnesota," Larry Sutherland, PRM's new CEO and former general manager of U.S. Steel ore operations in Minnesota, said in a statement.
Some of the ore that PRM will process comes from the early days of ore mining in Minnesota, he said. South African engineer and metallurgist Johann Grobler will serve as technical director.
Grobler and Anzelc are among several partners who formed PRM in January 2019. Six months later, the team paid $1.95 million to buy select Magnetation assets in Coleraine and Keewatin out of bankruptcy. The Magnetation loading equipment and other assets PRM bought will help PRM with its new demonstration plant in Coleraine, the company said.
Sutherland declined to talk specifics on the cost of the plant, but said the costs of the assets plus construction make it a multimillion-dollar project.
