Work starts on $100M Iron Plant in Conroe

In Conroe, Texas, Hertha Metals has started work on a $100 million plant that will produce high-purity iron in Conroe, about 40 miles north of Houston.

The new plant, located on FM 3082, is called Hertha Chalyx. Chalyx’s first priority is high-purity iron for U.S. rare earth magnet manufacturers.

The magnets go into electric vehicles, wind turbines, data centers, robotics and defense systems. U.S. officials have voiced concern over the supply of the magnets and certain rare earth materials after China reported last year that it would restrict the exports of them. An estimated 94% of the high-purity iron for those magnets (NdFeB magnets) is made in China.

Built next to Hertha’s Pi100 pilot plant, Chalyx forms the first modern iron and steel innovation complex in the U.S., where Hertha will develop and scale its process for making primary iron and steel.

Hertha developed the world’s first single-step process for making iron and steel from ore. Iron ore and natural gas go into a single furnace, and either liquid steel or high-purity iron comes out by controlling process chemistry. The process produces iron and steel at 25% lower cost than the blast furnace route, with safer operations and 50% lower emissions on natural gas, or up to 98% lower emissions using hydrogen.

“I founded Hertha Metals because I believed we could significantly improve how the world makes iron and steel from ore, and that an industry so fundamental to our future still had enormous room for invention,” said Dr. Laureen Meroueh, CEO and Founder of Hertha Metals. “Over the last two years, our team has worked relentlessly to prove the promise of our technology through production. 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, but the vision reaches much further. Successful commercial operations here will lay the foundation for our first 500,000-ton-per-year steel mill. For me, that is what makes today so meaningful: seeing persistence become the foundation for a new generation of iron and steelmaking.”

The roughly $100 million plant will run on domestic iron ore, primarily from Minnesota’s Iron Range, and Texas natural gas. Chalyx is slated to come online in late 2027, with magnet-grade high-purity iron production beginning in early 2028.

Hertha has named CV Engineering, a firm that specializes in steel industry design and construction, as the engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) partner for Chalyx. CV Engineering will lead engineering and construction through the plant’s completion, and Hertha expects to work with the firm on future facilities as it scales.

“It’s rare to build a new primary ironmaking plant around a process that’s already running at pilot scale next door,” said Kalyan Sennerikuppam, President and CEO of CV Engineering. “Our job is to take what Hertha has proven and build it to the standard the steel industry expects of any mill.”

CV Engineering has delivered engineering and construction management on more than $50 billion in U.S. steel mill projects for industry leaders including Nucor, U.S. Steel, Big River Steel, Steel Dynamics, ArcelorMittal, and Hybar.

Earlier this year it was reported that funding for the new plant would include a $65 million equity investment from the U.S. government through the Department of War’s Industrial Base Analysis and Sustainment (IBAS) program.

Speakers at the recent work start ceremony included U.S. Small Business Administration Administrator Kelly Loeffler, Congressman Morgan Luttrell (R-TX), Anthony Pugliese of the U.S. Department of Energy and Jennifer Jett of the U.S. Department of War. Hertha’s lead investors, Rajesh Swaminathan of Khosla Ventures and Ryan Panchadsaram of Doerr Capital, also spoke.