United States Steel Corp. will invest $1.9 billion at its Arkansas factory to produce direct reduced iron in what the company said will be the first facility of its kind in the United States.
Direct reduced iron, whose pellets are gathered and processed at U.S. Steel’s Minnesota mines, is a premium and pure form of iron that takes the place of scrap steel in the electric arc furnace method of steelmaking. The process makes for more efficient steelmaking at its state-of-the-art Big River Steel Works plant in Osceola, Arkansas.
U.S. Steel, which was acquired by Nippon Steel Corp. in June 2025, said the new investment at Big River Steel will allow it to take direct reduced-grade pellets mined at the Minnesota Ore Operations Keetac plant into the steelmaking process at Big River where there are four electric arc furnaces.
What it will do is allow U.S. Steel to connect the Minnesota mine to the Arkansas plant within the company instead of having to ship direct reduced iron from elsewhere. U.S. Steel previously had expanded its capabilities at Keetac to allow it to make the pellets.
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