“Thanks to our pro-business environment, Oklahoma is quickly becoming the critical minerals headquarters of the United States,” Stitt said in a statement Thursday evening.
According to the memorandum of understanding Stitt signed in April with the company’s chief executive officer, that pro-business environment consists of more than $275 million in incentives from the state, plus another expected $735 million in tax exemptions and offsets. The state is loaning the company more than half a billion dollars in tax increment financing.
The legislature still needs to approve that memorandum of understanding, but House Speaker Kyle Hilbert and Senate Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton expressed support.
"Oklahoma’s selection as the preferred site for the first new primary aluminum production plant built in the United States in nearly half a century is a landmark achievement for our state," Paxton said in a statement.
"Oklahoma proudly stands with President Trump in the mission to bring manufacturing back to American soil," Hilbert said in the same press release.
Stitt said the newly announced aluminum smelter will bring 1,000 direct jobs and 1,800 indirect jobs to Oklahoma.
Smelting is a separate process from refining. Aluminum refining, which will not take place in Inola, extracts alumina from ore and generates harmful solid waste in the process. The Inola facility will receive that alumina and convert it into aluminum. Smelting is very energy-intensive but doesn’t generate significant solid waste.
The Inola facility is expected to produce around 600,000 tons of aluminum each year.
The Port of Inola is a vision of the Tulsa Ports, which acquired 2,200 acres of land on the Verdigris River in 2019. The port’s industrial park is currently home to a paper mill and a proposed $1 billion solar panel factory, which was initially projected to start manufacturing and create 1,000 jobs by 2025. After Stitt touted it as the largest economic development project in state history, the solar panel manufacturing plant has been on hold for a year and a half.
Now, the aluminum smelter has topped the solar panel factory in terms of promised economic impact.
“We are proud to welcome Emirates Global Aluminium to our state and excited for the generational impact this investment will have on our future,” Stitt said. “As President Donald Trump looks to onshore our nation’s supply chain for critical minerals, Oklahoma is leading the way in this sector.”
Oklahoma has attracted several mineral refining plants over the past five years. A lithium refinery broke ground in Muskogee in January. Plans for a nickel refinery are facing pushback in Lawton. After being announced in 2022, a Stillwater plant that processes rare earth metals produced its first “neo magnets” earlier this year.
