INDUSTRY: Advanced Manufacturing, Automotive and Batteries, Metals
Services: Location Benchmarking, Site Selection, Incentives, Logistics Analysis
Location: Chester County, South Carolina
Capital Investment
New Jobs
Albemarle is a global leader in transforming essential resources such as lithium and bromine into critical ingredients for mobility, energy, connectivity, and health. Together with its world-class resources, technical and process knowledge, and safety and sustainability performance, Albemarle partners with its customers to pioneer new ways to move, power, connect, and protect. Albemarle was established in 1887 and is headquartered in Charlotte, North Carolina.
Global Location Strategies was commissioned by Albemarle, an American specialty chemical manufacturing company, to conduct a location benchmarking study, identify potential sites, and negotiate incentives for its next lithium hydroxide mega-flex facility. The project required a site with significant acreage, rail, and highway accessibility, a skilled workforce, and substantial utilities.
The search region included several states in the southeastern US that had proximity to their raw materials and port access. Additionally, GLS worked with a logistics partner to provide high-level logistics cost and carbon impact calculations to compare the competing locations. After a series of analyses, the finalist sites were evaluated on their developability, ease of permitting, required infrastructure improvements, and workforce quality and availability, amongst a multitude of other factors.
GLS negotiated and secured economic incentives on behalf of the company.
In 2023, Albemarle announced the selection of Chester County, South Carolina for its $1.3 billion lithium hydroxide facility. Albemarle plans to create 300 jobs and expects the facility to produce approximately 50,000 metric tons of battery-grade lithium hydroxide annually from multiple sources, with the potential to expand up to 100,000 metric tons. Production at the facility would support the manufacturing of an estimated 2.4 million electric vehicles (EVs) per year.
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