Louisiana becoming a hotbed of critical materials production Alton Wallace | ContributorAugust 16, 2025 at 9:59 PM Death Valley, USA ©Marco Bicca | Unsplash (The Center Square) – Louisiana is fast becoming a hub for processing critical minerals, rare earths and electrolyte salts used to produce lith...
- - Louisiana becoming a hotbed of critical materials production
Alton Wallace | ContributorAugust 16, 2025 at 9:59 PM
Death Valley, USA ©Marco Bicca | Unsplash
(The Center Square) – Louisiana is fast becoming a hub for processing critical minerals, rare earths and electrolyte salts used to produce lithium-ion batteries, with one plant operating successfully and seven more now under construction around the state.
The Trump administration and U.S. producers are racing to wean the country from dependence on imports from China.
Second-term Republican President Donald Trump on March 20 signed an executive order titled "Immediate Measures to Increase American Mineral Production" which is aimed at boosting domestic production of critical minerals and reducing reliance on foreign supplies. China has dominated the often dirty, capital-intensive business of processing critical minerals and rare earths for three decades.
Since 2022, companies planning and building plants in Louisiana that will process rare earths, critical minerals, and components of lithium-ion batteries have received more than $1 billion in grants, loans, and tax credits from the U.S. Departments of Energy and Defense and the state of Louisiana.
The Trump administration Wednesday proposed $1 billion of additional funding for the Department of Energy aimed at sponsoring partnerships to develop and scale up mining and processing technologies in the critical minerals and materials supply chains. The funding proposal includes up to $500 million for the Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains, which is to be used to boost U.S. processing of critical minerals and battery manufacturing.
At England Airpark in Alexandria, Ucore North America Rare Metals Inc. began construction in May on a plant that will separate rare earth metals from oxides shipped to the facility through the Port of New Orleans. Ucore received Department of Defense grants totaling $22.4 million to design and build the plant and was chosen for $15 million in tax exemptions by Louisiana Gov. Jon Bel Edwards in 2023. England Airpark, a repurposed Air Force base, is a duty-free zone.
Ucore's Alexandria plant will process rare earths neodymium, praseodymium, dysprosium, and terbium to purities of 99.9% for use in the production of permanent magnets, which are crucial in manufacturing a variety of high-tech applications including electric vehicles, wind turbines, cellphones, computer hard drives, robotics and military.
Ucore expects to begin processing at the Louisiana Strategic Metals Complex in June 2026 with initial production targeted at 3,000 tons of rare earths per year and output in 2027 projected to reach 12,000 tons per year. Ucore will use a solvent extraction process to separate the metals.
Louisiana Economic Development estimates Ucore's rare earths processing plant will bring 100 direct jobs and 298 indirect jobs to the Alexandria area. Ucore has received grants and tax credits totaling about $267 million from the Departments of Energy and Defense to support project planning and construction.
In Vidalia, about 70 miles east of Alexandria, Syrah Technologies began production in 2024 at its graphite processing plant near the Mississippi River and the company is now scaling up outputs. Syrah is the only U.S.-based supplier to refine graphite to the 99.5% purity level required by industrial and military users. China is the world's largest graphite supplier, accounting for 78% of global production in 2024, according to a report by the U.S. Geological Survey.
Syrah, the U.S. subsidiary of an Australian mining company, is ramping up production at the Vidalia plant as the Trump administration considers imposing Section 232 tariffs of 93.5% on anode graphite imported from China. In July, the Commerce Department found that anode graphite imported from China is being sold in the United States at less than fair market value. In October, the Trump administration will release a Section 232 report on U.S. imports of anode graphite from China which will establish a tariff rate that will go into effect in December.
Syrah's Vidalia plant processes "flake" or "natural" graphite mined in countries that are part of the U.S. battery supply chain. In 2024, there was no flake graphite mined in the United States, although synthetic graphite was produced. Manufactured synthetic graphite has a carbon footprint five times that of mined and processed flake graphite, and it is also far more costly to produce.
The typical electric vehicle battery contains more than 200 pounds of anode graphite, which has thermal and electrical properties that also make is essential in the production of F-35 fighter jets, the barrels of heavy artillery guns, the cones forming the tips of missiles, and satellites. Syrah signed a deal with Tesla calling for the company in January 2025 to begin supplying spheroid graphite processed for use in EV batteries.
Syrah's Vidalia processing plant employs 88 people, with a planned expansion expected to result in an additional 88 jobs. In 2022, the Department of Energy awarded Syrah a $220 million grant and loaned the company $102.1 million.
In south Louisiana, construction work has begun on three plants that will produce electrolyte salts critical in battery production. One of the electrolyte production plants is in Jefferson Parish and the other two are in St. Gabriel and Geismar.
In Jefferson Parish, Japanese chemical company UBE Corp. in February began construction on a $491 million facility at Cornerstone Energy Park configured to produce dimethyl carbonate and ethyl methyl carbonate, essential components in lithium-ion batteries. Jefferson Parish provided $80 million in tax breaks over the course of 10 years through the Industrial Tax Exemption Program.
In nearby Iberville Parish, United Kingdom-based Koura Global is reportedly retrofitting its existing plant in St. Gabriel to manufacture lithium hexafluorophosphate, known also as LiPF6, a component that allows for the efficient flow of electricity through lithium-ion batteries. Koura has previously estimated the facility would produce 10,000 metric tons of LiPF6 per year.
Koura has said it expects to spend more than $400 million on the project. In 2022, under the $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021, the U.S. Department of Energy awarded Koura with a $100 million grant to develop LiPF6 production. It is expected that the plant will become operational in 2026. The plant would be the first of its kind in the United States.
In Ascension Parish, the Energy Department in September 2024 awarded Battery Materials Processing Grants to Element 25 (Louisiana) LLC and Honeywell International Inc. to support production of battery components.
The Energy Department awarded $126.4 million to Honeywell to boost supply of Lithium bis(fluorosulfonyl)imide, also called LiFSI, which is a critical component in lithium-ion batteries and batteries designed for large-scale energy storage systems. Honeywell's production facility in Geismar will be the first of its kind in the United States, according to Department of Energy.
The Energy Department's 2024 grant to Element25 for $166.1 million supports construction of the company's refining facility in Burnside, which will produce high-purity manganese sulfate monohydrate, or HPMSM, a component in lithium-ion batteries. The plant will be the first of its kind in the nation, federal officials say. Element25 plans to import manganese concentrate from the company's Butcherbird mine in Australia.
In Louisiana's northeast, Exxon and other companies are searching for underground brine high in lithium content. Underground brines are high-salinity waters associated with salt deposits deep underground that often contain oil and lithium. Successful extraction of lithium from brines found underground across the state line in northeast Texas and south-central Arkansas indicate the mineral is present in large quantities in Louisiana, too.
In May, Louisiana State University Craft & Hawkins Department of Petroleum Engineering Associate Professor Ipsita Gupta received a $261,000 research grant funded by the U.S. Department of Energy's Geothermal Technologies Office to study minerals extracted from brines in the state's oil fields.
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