Washington, D.C.-based Glomar Minerals has placed greater New Orleans on a short list of finalist locations for what could become the first deep-sea critical mineral refinery in the United States. The company, formed in partnership with Australia’s Cobalt Blue Holdings Limited, plans to harvest polymetallic nodules from the floor of the Pacific Ocean and ship them to a domestic facility for processing into manganese, cobalt, nickel, and copper — materials used across high-tech manufacturing industries.
Glomar Executive Chairman Robbie Diamond said his team reviewed more than two dozen sites nationwide before narrowing the field to four, including two in the greater New Orleans area and additional locations near the Texas and North Carolina coasts. No specific addresses or neighborhoods have been disclosed. The company plans to make a final site selection by the end of the summer.
The proposed facility, internally called Project Infinity, is designed to process 200,000 tons of polymetallic nodules per year along with 7,500 tons of cobalt hydroxide, a key ingredient in lithium-ion batteries. Diamond said cost estimates for the project are not yet available, though he characterized the build-out as modular, starting small and scaling over time. The nodules sit up to 20,000 feet below the ocean’s surface and are collected using remote equipment that vacuums the material off the seabed and pumps it to the surface.
Greater New Orleans Inc., the region’s economic development nonprofit, has been actively pursuing the project. Chief Business Development Officer Grady Fitzpatrick said his team first pitched New Orleans to Glomar at an energy conference earlier this year. Fitzpatrick cited the Trump administration’s push for domestic critical mineral production as a driver behind the project’s pace, describing it as a national security priority.
If the region lands Project Infinity, it would join a growing cluster of industrial mineral investments in Louisiana. ElementUSA committed $850 million to a rare earth and critical minerals refining facility in St. John the Baptist Parish, UBE Corporation announced a $500 million electric vehicle battery ingredients plant in Jefferson Parish, and a $450 million partnership is underway at the ATALCO alumina refinery in Gramercy. No environmental or regulatory details, and no incentive packages, have been disclosed by either Glomar or GNO Inc. at this stage.
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