South Korean automaker Hyundai Motor Group today announced plans to build an electric arc steel rolling mill (EDP) near New Orleans, Louisiana, to support its car plants in the United States.
The plant in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, with a capacity of 2.7 million tons of steel per year, will primarily supply products to Hyundai automobile plants located in Alabama and Georgia, as well as to plants of Hyundai's subsidiary Kia and other US automakers. Construction is expected to begin in the third quarter of 2026.
Hyundai detailed the $5.8 billion investment on Monday at a press conference with U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump said the plant would allow Hyundai to avoid U.S. steel duties. The president imposed 25 percent duties on steel imports from all countries, including South Korea, where Hyundai has all of its 24 million metric tons of steelmaking capacity.
The combined annual production volume of Hyundai and Kia companies in the USA is 1.05 million vehicles per year.
According to LED, Hyundai Steel, a division of Hyundai Motor, plans to import about 3.6 million tons of iron ore per year to the plant and will build a deep-water dock on the west bank of the Mississippi River in Ascension County to receive supplies of steel and materials.
It is not yet clear whether iron ore will be recovered through direct iron reduction (DRI) or hot iron briquetting (HBI) for use in steelmaking in electric arc furnaces.
If the plant is built, it will become the first flat steel plant in Louisiana. It is located in Donaldsville, about 48 miles west of New Orleans.
Steel producers operate eight steelmaking and advanced rolling mills in the southern United States with a total production capacity of 23.8 million tons per year.
