Hertha Metals announced Monday it has broken ground on Hertha Chalyx, its first commercial plant in Conroe, Texas, designed to produce about 10,000 metric tons a year of steel-grade and magnet-grade high-purity iron combined.
Built next to Hertha’s Pi100 pilot plant, Chalyx forms the first modern iron and steel innovation complex in the US, where the company said it will develop and scale its process for making primary iron and steel.
The plant will run on domestic iron ore, primarily from Minnesota’s Iron Range, and Texas natural gas, the company said.
The roughly $100 million plant is funded by Hertha’s $133.65 million Series A, which included a $65 million equity investment from the US government.
“This investment today in Hertha Metals shows what economic defense looks like in practice: moving early against a strategic choke point, crowding in private capital, safeguarding our taxpayer resources through a disciplined equity structure and building domestic capacity before supply chain disruption becomes a crisis,” Jennifer Jett, Chief of Staff to the Under Secretary of War, Economic Defense Unit said in a statement.
The Houston- based startup is aiming to fill a critical gap in the US rare earth magnet supply chain as new domestic sourcing requirements approach and policymakers seek to reduce reliance on China for strategic materials.
The company is developing what it calls FLEXHERS, short for flexible fuel hydrogen electric reduction smelting, a process that combines electric arc furnace technology with natural gas or hydrogen to produce iron and steel.
Chalyx’s first priority is high-purity iron for U.S. rare earth magnet manufacturers. NdFeB magnets are about 70% high-purity iron by weight and go into electric vehicles, wind turbines, data centers, robotics and defense systems. An estimated 94% of the high-purity iron for those magnets is made in China.
In August, Hertha reached 99.95% purity at Pi100, the specification top magnet manufacturers require, and is in active supplier qualification with major U.S. rare earth magnet producers.
“Over the last two years, our team has worked relentlessly to prove the promise of our technology through production,” CEO Laureen Meroueh said in a news release. “
“With Chalyx, we take the next step: proving the business and demonstrating that our technology can deliver commercially. We’re starting with high-purity iron to fill a critical gap in the domestic rare earth magnet supply chain,” Meroueh said. “Successful commercial operations here will lay the foundation for our first 500,000-ton-per-year steel mill.”
Chalyx is expected to come online in late 2027, with magnet-grade high-purity iron production beginning in early 2028.