VIRGINIA — The chief executive of Cliffs Natural Resources Inc. has threatened to permanently close one of his operations on Minnesota’s Iron Range if an Essar Steel taconite plant under construction in Nashwauk goes into production, according to a report published Sunday.

“If they go online, I will shut down a plant up there the same day,” Lourenco Goncalves said. “We have fully planned for the worst case scenario.”

Essar Minnesota CEO Madhu Vuppuluri said he was very saddened to hear that. Business leaders shouldn’t speak so casually about something that could have such a serious impact on their employees and Iron Range communities.

“One more plant should not be the basis of whether to decide to keep another operation open or not. You should look at ways and means to keep operations going and to be creative to make operations better and to compete more effectively,” Vuppuluri said.

The $1.9 billion Essar project is scheduled to begin producing taconite pellets in the second half of 2016. It’s designed to produce 7 million tons of pellets annually at a time when existing Iron Range operations are already running below capacity due to the slumping steel market.