What's Ahead for Iron Ore ‐ January 2016
T o say that iron had a poor year in 2015 would be putting it quite mildly. While nearly every commodity went through a harsh bear market during the past year, iron in particular took it on the chin. Iron ore lost no less than 45% on the market through 2015, a worse performance than all of gold, silver, copper, and platinum. While there's no great white hope on the horizon for iron, there are a number of factors that appear to give it a badly‐needed shot in the arm to recoup some of the lost value of the past years. Iron Range Financing The Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board has began to take steps to put its money where its mouth is in order to reinvigorate the iron mining community across much of middle America. The IRRRB decided to invest nearly $5 million from the Mining Reinvestment Fund across four different taconite projects through the US. Minntac Iron Ore Operations would receive the most out of the windfall, a little over three million dollars for kiln burners, fine dust collectors, and rock breakers. KeeTac would receive over one million for magnetic separators and and fine screen upgrades. Smaller operations at Mesabi Nugget and Mining Resources would receive fifty thousand dollars for line softening and magnetic separation, respectively. The IRRRB also decided to invest some one million dollars in the Northeast Higher Education District in order to improve mining engineering training for the next generation of workers. Canadian Proposals Canada's mines have been hit hard by the commodities bubble, but that hasn't stopped some companies from continuing with their vision and planning new