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CF Industries’ plant in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, where the firm plans to make blue and green ammonia. The company has teamed with Mitsui & Co. CF and Mitsui say their project will be “export oriented” and located on the Gulf Coast. After a study, the companies plan to make a final investment decision in 2023 and complete the plant around 2027. It’s unclear whether these companies are involved in the Crossroads venture.
Jonas Titas is the new president of the Victoria Economic Development Corporation.
CF Industries’ plant in Donaldsonville, Louisiana, where the firm plans to make blue and green ammonia. The company has teamed with Mitsui & Co. CF and Mitsui say their project will be “export oriented” and located on the Gulf Coast. After a study, the companies plan to make a final investment decision in 2023 and complete the plant around 2027. It’s unclear whether these companies are involved in the Crossroads venture.
Two potential projects are being courted by the Victoria Economic Development Corp., including a rare-earth element processing facility and an eco-friendly blue ammonia production facility.
Both should be safe for the environment, said Jonas Titas, president of the VEDC.
Jonas Titas is the new president of the Victoria Economic Development Corporation.
Neither company was identified by Titas, since discussions are still underway.
Ammonia is a chemical compound crucial to the global fertilizer market. It’s made of nitrogen and hydrogen and is used in other ways for pharmaceuticals, textiles, cleaning products and wastewater treatment.
Ammonia is typically made through a chemical reaction between hydrogen and nitrogen at high pressure and temperatures of 842 degrees Fahrenheit. But scientific papers show blue ammonia is made by a different process using a low-carbon method. Blue ammonia can be used for the purification of semiconductors during their manufacture.
The regional strategic economic development plan is looking at linking Victoria with eight surrounding counties for a variety of upcoming projects, Titas said.
One of these is a South Korean company that wants to build the blue ammonia plant in Calhoun County. The plant is seen as a $1.5 billion project, Titas said. He did not identify the company.
The project, just across the county line, will need over 1,000 temporary construction workers.
In addition, there will be a huge employment base once the plant is built, and not all will choose to live in Calhoun County, Titas said.
The idea of neighboring counties working together is to lure businesses to the general region, Titas said.
“Hopefully, by partnering with the other surrounding counties, we’ll draw folks from all over the region,” Titas said.
Titas mentioned two plants that would be constructed to process light and heavy rare-earth materials.
These plants would be in Victoria and Calhoun counties. The plants would be near the coast, making the Crossroads a perfect location to help ship the materials, he said.
The light processing plant would be a $60 million project and the heavy processing plant a $140 million project.
The rare-earth materials processed at the plants would be used in everything from cellphones to fighter jets, Titas said.
Having these processing plants established in the region is important because the U.S. has fewer processing plants than mining operations focused on rare-earth materials, he said.
“Rare-earth elements processing is critical defense stuff,” Titas said. “The market is dominated by Russia and China, with most of it in China. This would be a means for the U.S. to start a heavy and light processing facility.”
Under the Defense Production Act, the government could partner with a company to fund the plants. Most of what is used is mined in Australia and initially processed in Malaysia, Titas said.
Rare-earth elements are a group of 17 metallic elements. They are a crucial part of many high-tech devices, such as cellphones, computer hard drives, electric and hybrid vehicles and flat-screen monitors and televisions, according to industry documents.
The U.S. SEAL team sent to capture Osama bin Laden would not have been able to accomplish that mission without the night-vision equipment and communications gear that these materials made possible.
Defense applications include electronic displays; guidance systems; lasers; radar; and sonar systems. Magnets made of these elements often represent only a small fraction of the total weight, but without them, the spindles in motors and voice coils of desktops and laptops would not be possible.
Titas said mining rare-earth elements could occur once again in the Rockies or West Texas.
A longtime journalist, local government reporter George Coryell likes 1960s muscle cars and firearms.
George covers city and county government here in Victoria and the Crossroads.
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