ElementUSA announces that it’s investing $850 million to build a rare earth and critical minerals refining facility in St. James Parish. Parish President Pete Dufresne says the facility will lead to the creation of 200 new direct jobs with an average salary of $90,000 a year, along with more than 550 new indirect jobs.
“It would bring a lot of multi-skilled level positions to Saint James Parish, which we greatly need,” Dufresne said.
Dufresne says ElementUSA chose St. James Parish because the industrial infrastructure is already in place with the Atlantic Alumina plant.
“They’re going to use the same raw ingredients that Atlantic uses in their alumina extraction process. They’re going to take that same bauxite, and they’re going to extract more elements from that same material,” Dufresne explained.
Dufresne says the addition of ElementUSA would enhance the production that’s happening at Atlantic Alumina.
“And if they can take the byproduct of the current operations, and they can further expand on that to get more uses from that same product, that’s just a win-win for everybody, for the company and the community,” Dufresne said.
Construction of the new ElementUSA plant is expected to begin sometime in 2027.
