A $700 million steel mill is coming to Kern County, California, and when it opens in 2027 it will be the first new steel production facility built in the state in more than half a century.
The Mojave Micro Mill is owned by San Diego-based Pacific Steel Group. Once operating, it is expected to employ hundreds of workers directly and spur growth in secondary industries that typically grow up around a plant of this size.
California is, by raw numbers, the largest manufacturing state in the country, with nearly 1.3 million manufacturing jobs and more than $400 billion in output. Gov. Gavin Newsom regularly cites that ranking. But measured per capita, California drops to 32nd in the nation — Louisiana holds the top spot. The headline number obscures a much weaker reality for industry trying to operate under the state’s regulatory regime.
Newsom has promoted the Mojave mill, including in his 2026 “State of the State” address, even though his relationship with Kern County itself has been openly adversarial. Kern County sits at the heart of California’s oil and gas industry, a sector Newsom has targeted repeatedly during his two terms. He has also criticized the county for failing to implement his “CARE courts” program, intended to move mentally ill homeless people off the streets — a failure that had more to do with flaws in the CARE court system than with any resistance from Kern County officials.
The mill’s path forward isn’t despite California’s rules so much as built around them. Mojave Micro Mill will run on what’s billed as “green” technology, including carbon-scrubbing equipment designed to cut plant emissions, a design choice that reflects what it now takes for heavy industry to get approved and operate in the state.
That raises the obvious question: how many more companies would build in California, or stay there instead of leaving, if they weren’t forced to engineer around the state’s regulatory maze in the first place.
Still, for a state that has spent years watching factories and employers head for the exits, a new steel mill breaking ground is worth noting. Whether it marks the start of a real manufacturing rebound in California, or stands as a rare exception, remains to be seen.
