Piedmont Lithium announced Thursday that the company abandoned its plan to invest $582 million to establish a lithium hydroxide processing, refining, and manufacturing facility in Etowah and instead build the proposed plant in North Carolina.
The company currently operates a plant in Gaston County, North Carolina, called Carolina Lithium, which will be expanded with the addition of the facility originally expected to be built in Etowah.
Piedmont is a producer of battery-grade lithium hydroxide, a critical component in the supply chain for electric vehicle and battery storage markets.
The company said abandoning its proposed Tennessee plant was “in response to dynamic market conditions.”
“Following the receipt of our Carolina Lithium state mining permit in Q2’24, and in response to changing market conditions, we have consolidated our U.S. project development strategy to deploy capital and technical resources more efficiently and leverage the Company’s foundational North Carolina project. As part of our strategy, we plan to shift the proposed Tennessee Lithium conversion capacity to Carolina Lithium to include two lithium hydroxide trains constructed in a phased approach,” the company announced in its Q2 2024 Earnings Report released Thursday.
Piedmont Lithium’s stock has decreased 81 percent within the past year.
The company’s Tennessee facility was planned to be located at the North Etowah Industrial Park and utilize “more environmentally responsible and economic processing technology, supporting Piedmont’s objective of becoming a large, low-cost, sustainable producer of lithium products.”
The Tennessee Department of Economic and Community Development (TNECD) touted at the time that the facility would be America’s largest “lithium hydroxide processing” facility, which would produce 30,000 metric tons of battery-grade lithium annually.
The project was expected to create 117 new jobs in McMinn County.
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Kaitlin Housler is a reporter at The Tennessee Star and The Star News Network. Follow Kaitlin on X / Twitter.
