Mesabi Metallics to build a $15B lower-carbon steel mill in Iowa

A company called Mesabi Metallics plans to build a $15 billion steel plant in southeast Iowa, President Trump announced this week. The mill will skip the coal-fired blast furnaces that traditional steelmakers still use. Instead, it will run on natural gas to convert iron ore pellets into what's called direct reduced iron, then finish the process in an electric arc furnace, likely powered by Iowa's wind-heavy electric grid. That combination produces far less pollution than old-style coal furnaces, though it would be cleaner still if the company eventually swapped in green hydrogen instead of gas — something it hasn't committed to.

The pellets will come from Mesabi's iron ore mine in Minnesota, which the company is separately investing nearly $3 billion to finish building. Production at the Iowa plant is expected to start in 2030. Trump credited his administration's 50 percent tariffs on imported steel with drawing the investment, and officials described the deal as done, even though some details, like exact shipping routes for the ore, are still unsettled.

For homeowners, this isn't a program or rebate you can sign up for. It's a shift in how a portion of American steel gets made, with cleaner production methods than the coal-based furnaces that still dominate the industry elsewhere, including a plant in Ohio that recently used a federal loan to extend its old coal furnace rather than replace it.