A prairie town in Oklahoma is slated to become the country's biggest aluminum producer

The Inola smelter is expected to produce 750,000 tonnes 
of aluminum per year. (Modern Metals photo)

"Hay Capital of the World" is how many residents of Inola, Oklahoma, describe their small town of roughly 1,800 people. But these locals could "soon have another moniker to consider: America’s Aluminum Epicenter," reports Ryan Dezember of The Wall Street Journal. The prairie town was "selected as the site for the first new aluminum smelter in the U.S. since 1980. Construction is expected to cost more than $4 billion and begin by year-end. It is expected to employ about 1,000 workers once complete."

Over the past 50 years, the U.S. relinquished its dominance in primary aluminum production to China, as American producers closed their smelters amid rising electricity costs. Dezember adds, "A smelter can consume as much power as a large U.S. city."

Currently, U.S. businesses import most of their aluminum. The country has "just four smelters [that] make the primary aluminum necessary in many defense and aerospace applications," Dezember writes. "The planned smelter would more than double the U.S.’s smelting capacity."

 

Before choosing the Inola site, Emirates Global Aluminum (EGA) and Chicago-based Century Aluminum, the two companies behind the smelter project, considered "45 sites in more than two dozen states," Dezember reports. "Electricity costs, which make up more than one-third of production expenses, were paramount."

McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, in green, is the 
most westerly inland river system in the U.S. (ODOT map)

In addition to affordable electricity from natural gas and hydropower, the Inola location offered "business-friendly regulation, an ice-free port deep inland, as well as an aerospace industry and other big aluminum consumers," Dezember explains. The Inola smelter site is also near the McClellan-Kerr Arkansas River Navigation System, which connects New Orleans to the Great Plains by way of the Mississippi River.

EGA and Century Aluminum say the smelter "will take at least three years to build," Dezember reports. Once completed, the smelter is expected to run for decades.