Hertha Metals has broken ground on a 100 million dollar commercial plant in the United States to produce magnet grade iron, Mining.com reported, a project aimed squarely at the rare earth and permanent magnet supply chain Washington has spent two years trying to onshore.
Magnet grade iron is an unglamorous input with strategic weight: high purity iron units feed the production of the alloys and magnets that go into motors, wind turbines and defence systems, and supply has been concentrated in a handful of producers. A domestic plant does not change the magnet market’s balance this year, but it is the kind of midstream asset the critical minerals strategy keeps identifying as the missing layer between mines and finished components.
The item is single sourced to Mining.com’s report of the groundbreaking and is carried at grade C on that basis; the company’s own release had not been located when this edition closed.