The plant is expected to eventually produce 10 million tons of steel annually as more capacity is added.

Building the Iowa steel complex will create more than 6,000 construction jobs during construction and use "a world-class steel supply chain that is 100% American," said Mesabi Metallics CEO Joe Broking, but officials have not identified its construction team. Once operational, it will support at least 1,750 workers, the company said.

Mesabi's investment "will create high-paying jobs with competitive benefits in Iowa and Minnesota, generate tens of billions of dollars in U.S. economic activity and strengthen our domestic manufacturing base,” he added, with products to be used in national defense, vehicles, ships, energy systems and infrastructure.

The Iowa steel complex will use hot direct-reduced iron and electric arc furnace technologies that Mesabi said will significantly lower energy consumption and reduce emissions. The direct-reduced iron technology creates solid metallic iron by removing oxygen at temperatures below its melting point from iron ore. 

The mill's electric arc furnace will be fed with a mixture of freshly reduced iron from the plant's own direct-reduced iron process and scrap steel to cut energy needed and emissions compared to traditional blast furnaces, the company said. 

Mesabi's iron ore mine located is the first new U.S. iron ore mine built in 50 years, the company added, set to produce what it calls the Patriot Pellet—a direct-reduction-grade iron ore pellet engineered for modern electric arc furnace steelmaking.

But the mill location in Iowa is a “gut punch,” Minn. Rep. Spencer Igo (R) said in a Facebook post. “We cannot continue to watch billions of dollars in investment and thousands of good paying jobs go elsewhere and pretend there is nothing we can do about it,” he said.

More than 1,500 construction workers are on site in Minnesota currently, with about 200 full-time employees already working at the mine, set to grow into 350 full-time jobs once fully operational, the company said.

Project completion of the mine was 95.5% as of May 31, an SEC filing reports, with engineering described as 99% finished and construction as 91.4% done.

Broking has said the company would expand mine capacity with an additional hot briquetted iron facility, a purer form of iron used to supply electric arc furnaces, according to MPR News. It also reported that Broking told local officials the company wants more efficient state permitting, more competitive incentives and regained control of state mineral leases awarded to Cleveland-Cliffs, a rival mining and steelmaking company, according to MPR News. 

Essar Steel Minnesota, which had been developing the Minnesota mine, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2016 because it was unable to raise enough money to finish construction. The bankruptcy allowed it to preserve and eventually complete the project.

Mesabi Metallics notes on its website that it pays contractors on the 16,000-acre Minnesota mine project one month in advance. IBEW union Local 294 says on its website that the project is covered by a project labor agreement, which is common, but that upfront payment is rare. 

Electrical workers union members are "handling all aspects of the electrical work: power distribution, motor controller installation and commissioning, raceway installation, underground duct bank installation, and lighting," the union reports. "Members are also responsible for overhead crane installation and commissioning, instrumentation installation and commissioning, design assist for mining substation construction, and site construction power need."