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Syrah Resources subsidiary looks to Ascension Parish for battery...

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    Syrah Resources subsidiary looks to Ascension Parish for battery component plant.
    ONZALES — An Australian mining concern planning a graphite refining plant in Louisiana is eyeing Ascension Parish after failing to locate the facility in Tangipahoa and St. John the Baptist parishes.
    Syrah Resources says it is looking at an undisclosed site in the Geismar area, as well as others in additional unnamed parishes, for the $25 million startup facility that will refine graphite mined in Mozambique for use in lithium ion battery components.
    The plant will initially employ 25 people and have a $1.5 million payroll but could grow eventually to more than 130 employees if production grows, as projected, by 16 times over the next five years, a company presentation says. Construction is expected to generate $1 million in sales taxes through 2019 for local governments in Ascension, parish officials said.

    In the initial phase, the plant, the first of its kind in the United States, is expected to quickly ramp up production from 2,500 tons to 10,000 tons per year of refined, spherical graphite, a company official said. The powder-like material will be shipped to other producers to make battery anodes, typically the negative electrode in a battery and the source of the electron flow that powers electrical devices.
    Paul Jahn, chief operating officer of Syrah Technologies, the U.S. subsidiary of Syrah Resources, added this week that the batteries are used for all sorts of electronic devices, from cellphones to electrical grid storage, but his company is zeroing initially on one fast-growing sector.
    "Our expectation is that we would target the electric vehicle battery industry first," Jahn said Wednesday.
    He said China is the only place in the world using the technology that Syrah will use in Louisiana, but, he said, the U.S. automotive supply chain has great interest in diversifying away from China.
    Jahn said the company is looking at Louisiana because of its business climate, trained workforce and network of highways and rail lines — and the Mississippi River — allowing the graphite to be shipped to and from the region to anywhere in the nation or world.
    "So those would be really the three key factors in our mind," he said.
    In January, the South Tangipahoa Parish Port Commission rejected locating the plant on its property in the Manchac area amid opposition from environmentalists, neighbors and others worried about how the air and water emissions would affect the surrounding freshwater swamps popular for boating, crabbing and fishing.
    The plant's function is to convert bulk "flake" graphite powder shipped from Mozambique into spherical graphite powder, first by milling and then using an acid solution to leach out impurities so the material is more than 99.9 percent graphite, state permit records say. Graphite is a form of carbon.
    In Manchac, Syrah had planned to store hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, sodium hydroxide and lime on site. The company also proposed to discharge 41,000 gallons per day of treated process wastewater into the North Pass of Manchac and wanted to emit nearly 38 tons per year of particulates into the air of the swamps surrounding the port's isolated site off Interstate 55.
    While Jahn would not disclose the exact location in Geismar, the area has a heavy industrial presence with major petrochemical refiners with vastly larger air emissions than Syrah is anticipating and where storage of potent chemicals is common.
    Syrah's reception in Ascension was a lot more accommodating this week. Jahn spoke Tuesday night in Gonzales before the Ascension Parish Council Finance Committee to win $2.8 million in property tax exemptions under the state's Industrial taxes Exemption program for the 50,000- to 60,000-square-foot facility.

    One question raised by Councilman Bill Dawson was if the facility would require a major source air permit; Jahn said it wouldn't.
    Ascension is part of the Baton Rouge region that has struggled with ozone attainment. Facilities that need major source air permits can face a tougher approval process, with regulators requiring more expensive emission controls.
    The committee unanimously recommended approving the industrial tax exemption to the full Parish Council. Syrah also needs backing from the parish School Board and Sheriff Jeff Wiley under a new approval process instituted by Gov. John Bel Edwards and his state Board of Commerce and Industry.
    Under the proposed incentive deal, Syrah would get 100 percent local tax exemption for five years if it spends more than $20 million on capital improvements. The exemption steps down with lesser investment. In the sixth to eighth years of the incentive deal, the exemption would be on 80 percent of the facility's value, as required by the state.
    Even if Syrah wins the 100 percent exemption for the first five years, local jurisdictions that collect property tax in Ascension would gain an estimated $3.6 million in revenue over the subsequent 25 years, parish officials said.
    Before attempting to locate in Tangipahoa Parish, Syrah Technologies had a site in Reserve in St. John the Baptist Parish and even received a minor source air permit from the state, but Jahn said company officials later learned they could not meet their water supply needs there.
    Greg Langley, spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Quality, said the company would need a new permit to locate in Ascension. He said Wednesday the agency has not received a new request.

    Ascension parish is in Louisana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ascension_Parish,_Louisiana
 
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