Mining Company To Expand Bauxite Plant

 

　　The new plant, announced during a news conference at the Bauxite Community Center and Museum, is expected to add up to 140 additional jobs, company officials said.

 

　　“It has a tremendous impact on the local economy,” Gov. Mike Beebe told reporters after the event. “It will create an untold number of construction jobs. For local suppliers it will create, sustain or expand other jobs.”

 

　　Saint-Gobain already produces proppants at plants in Fort Smith and in China. Saint-Gobain needs a new factory so it can fill expanding orders, company officials said.

 

　　The Fort Smith facility, which employs 200 people, will “absolutely” keep running, said Antonio Vilela, vice president and general manager of Saint-Gobain NorPro. The company recently spent $15 million to upgrade that plant, he said.

 

　　Saint-Gobain Corp. already operates a ceramic proppants production facility in Bauxite, where it makes a product used in the natural gas drilling process known as “fracking,” where water, sand and chemicals are injected into a well to fracture rock and free the natural gas.

 

　　The ceramic proppants are spherical beads about the size of a grain of sand.

 

　　Officials said the 100,000-square-foot facility will be located on 68 acres, next to an existing plant that supplies the materials located in the proppant manufacturing process.

 

　　The company is expected to break ground on the new facility later this year, with production beginning by the end of next year.

 

　　Bauxite has a population of 432, but as many as 7,000 people lived there during World War II, working to supply the war effort with aluminum.

 

　　Saint-Gobain already employs 400 people in Arkansas, including facilities in Fort Smith, Glenwood, Hot Springs, Little Rock and Nashville.

 

　　Saint-Gobain, which has been in operation since the 1600s, is headquartered in Paris and has operations in 64 countries, employing 190,000 people. The company had 2010 sales of $53.2 billion.