I read mn brett's post this morning, and when I got home from work, discovered the same article on my Android as I was scrolling through the Det News articles I read when unwinding from my day. As I was browsing, I was reminded of his post and wondered about the statement he shared, "because there is to (sic) much overburden to move to get to the Iron."garbear wrote:This was in today's online Detroit News. Sort of goes along with Brett's post.
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/m ... /84126352/
A big part of me knows this is about current economic conditions vs how the global situation is with steel imports, ore trade globally, etc. But there seems to me that there might be a glimmer of hope down the road if "there is to (sic) much overburden..." that there might be hope for future mining operations there.
Perhaps the current situation is too burdensome for Cliffs to handle given the publicly held company demands they face. Maybe the demands of a publicly owned company can't support the current lower production against the demands of it's investors right now given the past issues of steel dumping and how it's affected our domestic trade in pellets? Those demands can't afford digging past the next layer of overburden to find the next vein of ore?
Permanently closing an open pit mine in our current EPA regulated life means offering reparations to the land that was there before. So if Empire is to be shelved on a permanent basis, then overburden will need to be replaced, trees planted, etc. Is this to actually happen or is this just something that is going to be a shut down and "hold our cards close the vest" until we can say "wait a minute, we found more there" when the economy for pellets turns more favorable?
Food for thought.