Mississippi lawmakers approved $247 million in state incentives for an aluminum plant that officials say will bring 1,000 jobs to the state with an average salary of $93,000.
The $2.5 billion corporate investment by Indiana-based Steel Dynamics Inc. includes two facilities: an aluminum mill and a biocarbon facility.
Steel Dynamics has a steel mill near Columbus, Mississippi, and will be expanding its operations from there.
Bill Cork, chief economic development officer with the Mississippi Development Authority, detailed the project to legislators in a Nov. 2 special session called by Gov. Tate Reeves.
In referencing Senate Bill 2001, which later went unopposed in the vote, Cork discussed the Triple Crown Project fund, which is a fund set up in the state treasury for the purpose of providing grants and loans to finance the facilities.
The first subproject of the Triple Crown Project fund is the $1.9 billion aluminum plant that Cork said will bring 700 jobs with an average salary of $100,000.
The aluminum mill takes in slab aluminum as well as recycled aluminum brought into the site by truck and rail, then processed and rolled into flat sheets, he said.
Those sheets are then used in the automotive stamping, beverage can, and stamped aluminum industries, he said.
“A separate project which is built into the total package but which is unrelated to the aluminum is a $150 million, 40-job biocarbon facility,” Cork said. “This takes organic materials, converts it to ash, and the ash is processed and then that is used as feedstock to steel production.”
That subproject will have future projects to be named later, he said.
Largest Investment to Date
The project will be operating in what is called The Golden Triangle, which includes the Mississippi cities of Columbus, Starkville, and West Point.The aluminum facility will be built on a 2,000-acre site, with construction expected to begin in 2023 and to be completed in 2025, the governor’s office stated in a press release.
Steel Dynamics’ joint venture, SDI Biocarbon Solutions LLC, will begin construction this year and is expected to be completed in 2023.
Reeves called it a “record-breaking investment” that will have an “unprecedented impact” on Mississippi.
Since Continental Tire invested $1.45 billion to build a manufacturing plant in Clinton, Mississippi, in 2016, with a promise of 2,500 jobs and an average pay of $40,000 a year, Steel Dynamics is the largest investment to date.
