Korea Zinc Co. has announced that it can process about $3 billion worth of leftover metal from an old U.S. smelter it plans to transform into a major critical minerals hub.
The company—one of the world’s leading processors of zinc and other metals—purchased the Nyrstar processing plant in Clarksville, Tennessee, last December and now intends to invest $7.4 billion to expand and modernize it.
This initiative would support former President Donald Trump’s efforts to ensure a domestic supply of minerals vital for consumer electronics, robotics, and defence technologies. Currently, China dominates the critical minerals industry, resulting in U.S. companies relying heavily on foreign imports.
According to CEO Yun B. Choi, the site already contains a significant amount of waste material that holds important metals such as zinc, copper, lead, silver, and germanium.
“It’s very appealing to us,” Choi said Wednesday at the World Economic Forum in Davos. “This is actually a significant advantage that comes with the plant, providing us with a secure source of germanium, gallium, and other materials U.S. industries want to secure.”
Choi estimates that the facility, previously owned by commodities trader Trafigura Group, contains around 600,000 tons of discarded materials—valued at more than $3 billion at current prices. He added that processing all of it would likely take six or seven years.
The expansion is backed by the U.S. government and JPMorgan Chase & Co. Korea Zinc has stated it will begin the project this year, aiming to start commercial operations by 2029. However, the company still needs to source additional raw materials to feed into the smelter, making on-site waste materials crucial for the initial supply.
“We have the technical ability to extract the metals contained at the site and profit from them,” Choi said.
Choi also mentioned he sought assurances from the Trump administration that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would not detain Korean workers assigned to the site, especially after law enforcement arrested 475 individuals in a raid at Hyundai Motor Co.’s battery plant in Georgia last year.
“We talked with the U.S., and we received strong assurances that such detentions will never happen,” said Choi. “It will not occur.”
These developments come as Korea Zinc faces an ownership dispute, which began last year when its largest shareholder launched an unsolicited takeover bid for the Seoul-based firm.
Following the December announcement, Young Poong Corp.—Korea Zinc’s top investor—claimed that the smelter acquisition was intended to strengthen the CEO’s managerial control rather than benefit the company’s business interests.