Project Traits
State: North Carolina
Congressional District: Unknown
Organization Type: Commercial
Partner Organization(s) Type: None or Unknown
Energy Sector: Critical Minerals,
Energy Subsector: Lithium,
Project Start Year: Unknown
Project Launch Year: Unknown
Government Support Received: Federal Grant [Battery Manufacturing and Recycling Grants] for $150,000,000
Outcomes & Impacts
Private Investment: $376,000,000
Jobs Announced or Created: Unknown
People Served: Unknown
Projected Economic Impact: Unknown
Albemarle Corporation (NYSE: ALB), a global leader in the specialty chemicals industry, announced it has been awarded a nearly $150 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as part of the first set of projects funded by the President's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law to expand domestic manufacturing of batteries for electric vehicles (EVs) and the electrical grid and for materials and components currently imported from other countries. The grant funding is intended to support a portion of the anticipated cost to construct a new, commercial-scale U.S.-based lithium concentrator facility at Albemarle's Kings Mountain, North Carolina, location.
Albemarle expects the concentrator facility to create hundreds of construction and full-time jobs, and to supply up to 350,000 metric tons per year of spodumene concentrate to the company's previously announced mega-flex lithium conversion facility. The mega-flex conversion facility is expected to eventually produce up to 100,000 metric tons of battery-grade lithium per year to support domestic manufacturing of up to 1.6 million EVs per year. Albemarle is finalizing the site selection for the mega-flex conversion facility in the southeastern United States. That facility design would accommodate multiple feedstocks, including spodumene from the proposed reopening of the company's hard rock mine in Kings Mountain; its existing lithium brine resources in Silver Peak, Nevada, and other global resources; as well as potential recycled lithium materials from existing batteries.
In addition to supporting the development of the concentrator, Albemarle will use a portion of the grant to support a $5 million mineral processing operator training program at Cleveland Community College, a $1.5 million minerals lab research program at Virginia Tech, and a $1.5 million minerals pilot plant and engineering training program at North Carolina State University's Asheville Minerals Research Lab.