The Board of Directors of the Export-Import Bank of the United States (EXIM), the U.S. government's official export credit agency, approved a US$770 million direct loan for Mesabi Metallics' iron ore mine at Nashwauk, Minnesota, according to EXIM's 28 September 2026 release. The release says the approval came "last week" and gives no day, tenor, pricing or repayment ranking. The loan is approved. Nothing in EXIM's text says it has been signed, closed or drawn.
A domestic mine is an unusual object for an export credit agency, and the filing shows how the fit was made. EXIM's Federal Register notice of 17 August 2026 describes an application, then pending before the Board, for a long-term loan or guarantee above US$100 million under its Make More in America initiative, and lists the mine's direct-reduction iron pellets as the export. The notice states no amount, so it cannot be tied by its own words to the US$770 million.
The sequence is where the record frays. At a 17 September event at the mine, KAXE reported that EXIM Chairman John Jovanovic discussed the loan and that Mesabi chief executive Joe Broking said it completes the project's US$2.5 billion in funding. That is the company's claim, reported by KAXE, not EXIM's. EXIM's own 17 September release carried no loan. Its only financing figure was Representative Pete Stauber's statement that EXIM was "issuing up to $10 billion in financing" for the expansion, and Mesabi chairman Rewant Ruia's statement that the company is investing over US$2.5 billion. Northern News Now described the loan that day as being finalized. The 28 September release then puts the Board's approval in the week after the event. The sources do not reconcile whether the loan was publicly discussed before or as the vote was taken, and EXIM has not said.
Four figures sit near one another and should stay apart. The US$770 million is an approved direct loan. In March the U.S. Department of the Interior said EXIM had approved a US$550 million term sheet for Mesabi, a different stage and instrument, and no source read here says whether the loan upsizes it or stands beside it. The "up to $10 billion" is a congressman's statement relayed by EXIM, and Interior described the figure in March as the project investment EXIM's support would unlock, not a ceiling on EXIM's own lending. The US$2.5 billion is a project funding total. None of the four adds to another.
EXIM's 28 September release also ties the mine to Mesabi's announced plan for a US$15 billion steel plant in Iowa, which the release says the mine's ore will supply. That plan is announced, not built, and the release does not say EXIM is financing it.
The missing numbers are the signal. Until EXIM publishes tenor, pricing and where its claim ranks against the mine's other lenders, the US$770 million shows how much Washington has approved but not how much of the mine's risk it holds.
Primary source(s): EXIM news release, 28 September 2026 (exim.gov); EXIM news release, 17 September 2026 (exim.gov); Federal Register notice 2026-16688, 17 August 2026; U.S. Department of the Interior release, March 2026; KAXE, 18 September 2026; Northern News Now, 17 September 2026