Iowa approved up to $1.4 billion in tax credits for the mill on Oct. 2. The incentives amount to roughly $777,000 per planned permanent job over 10 years. Earlier recruitment listings were tagged remote in Iowa, while the procurement manager's description said the hire would be “based in Paducah, Kentucky.”
President Donald Trump announced the project Sept. 28. Mesabi, owned by India's Essar, plans to begin production in 2030, with initial output of 7.5 million tons of steel annually rising to about 10 million tons. The project is projected to create 1,750 permanent jobs and support up to 6,000 construction jobs, using ore from Mesabi's Minnesota mine. The US Export-Import Bank approved $770 million for the mine; Essar's earlier Minnesota venture went bankrupt in 2016.