Mesabi Trust Press Release

Distribution Announcement

The Trustees of Mesabi Trust (NYSE:MSB) declared a distribution of One Dollar and seventy-five cents ($1.75) per Unit of Beneficial Interest payable on February 20, 2022 to Mesabi Trust Unitholders of record at the close of business on January 30, 2022. This compares to a distribution of forty-six cents ($0.46) per Unit for the same period last year.

The One Dollar and twenty-nine cents ($1.29) per Unit increase in the current distribution, as compared to the distribution announced by the Trust at the same time last year, is primarily attributable to the Trust’s receipt of total royalty payments of $19,053,159 (which included $2,833,687 for past underpaid royalties on DR grade pellets in 2019 and 2020, including interest, pursuant to the AAA final award decision received by the Trust on October 1, 2021) from Cleveland-Cliffs Inc. (“Cliffs”), the parent company of Northshore Mining Company (“Northshore”), which was higher than the total royalty payments of $5,925,181 received by the Trust from Cliffs in October 2020. In addition to the receipt of underpaid royalties pursuant to the AAA final award, the increase in the royalty received by the Trust for the third calendar quarter of 2021, as compared to the royalty received for the third calendar quarter of 2020, is primarily attributable to higher prices for iron ore products reflected in the third quarter 2021 royalty calculations, and higher volume of shipments during the third quarter 2021, compared with shipments in the third quarter 2020. Finally, the Trust’s announcement today also reflects the Trustees’ determination that Mesabi Trust should have sufficient reserves available to make such a distribution while also maintaining an appropriate level of unallocated reserves in order for the Trust to be positioned to meet current and future expenses, and present and future liabilities (whether fixed or contingent) that may arise, including expenses that would be incurred during any potentially prolonged period of idling of Northshore Mining operations in the future.

Cliffs has not advised the Trust of any implementation of, or changes to, its publicly announced plans to shift production of DR grade pellets away from Northshore to Minorca, to no longer sell pellets to third parties in the coming years and to keep idle the Northshore plant from time to time.

Quarterly royalty payments from Northshore for iron ore shipments during the fourth calendar quarter, which are payable to Mesabi Trust under the royalty agreement, are due on January 30, 2022, together with the quarterly royalty report. After receiving the quarterly royalty report, Mesabi Trust plans to file a summary of the quarterly royalty report with the Securities and Exchange Commission in a Current Report on Form 8-K.