Cliffs has purchased 553 acres and leased another 3,215 acres from Glacier Park Iron Ore Properties LLC in Itasca County, Minnesota.
The land includes parcels formerly leased to Mesabi Metallics Co LLC, a would-be competitor to the Cleveland-based iron ore miner.
Mesabi Metallics’ lease rights were terminated when it failed to exit bankruptcy by an October 31 deadline because it couldn’t secure funding on time, Cliffs said on Monday December 11.
“Despite several botched attempts by others,
it is now time for Cleveland-Cliffs to sit at the table with other responsible parties to develop a realistic solution for this site,” Lourenco Goncalves, Cliffs’ chairman, president and chief executive officer, said in a statement.
Those “responsible parties” include...