Red Metals, a startup that wants to refine copper in North Charleston, is looking for people to run its first plant.

The company posted a plant operator opening in Charleston on Oct. 12, one of five Charleston listings on its job board. The others are for mechanical, electrical, and chemical and process engineers, plus a general posting titled “Other Builders & Innovators.”

Red Metals announced June 4 that it would spend $70 million on a 42,000-square-foot plant at 4500 Leeds Ave. and create at least 45 jobs, according to the South Carolina Department of Commerce. The plant will make high-conductivity copper rod used in wire, cable and other electrical products. The state said operations were expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2026, and the Coordinating Council for Economic Development approved job development credits for the project.

Conventional refining moves copper through several intermediate products and often several countries before it becomes a finished product, the company said. Red Metals says its process combines sorting, processing and refining in one continuous operation, starting with domestic copper scrap.

“America has the feedstocks, the demand, and the workforce to produce copper domestically at scale. What it has lacked is an economically viable refining process,” founder and CEO Jackson Switzer said in the company’s announcement.

Red Metals also announced a $10 million seed round led by Gigascale Capital, with Future Ventures, MCJ and JB Straubel, the Tesla co-founder who runs battery recycler Redwood Materials. Redwood operates a recycling campus at Camp Hall in Berkeley County. Red Metals says its team includes people from Redwood, Boeing, Albemarle and BASF.

The Leeds Avenue address is World Trade Center Charleston, a multi-tenant industrial complex of about 1 million square feet on roughly 80 acres, according to a 2022 announcement by Avison Young, then its leasing agent.

Red Metals had not announced the start of production as of Oct. 18. Its website still lists the plant as “Coming to Charleston.”