Just a few years ago, if you opened a can of soda anywhere in the United States, the container you were holding most likely contained pieces of magnesium mined from the Great Salt Lake.
Currently, the country's supply of this critical mineral appears uncertain. The largest producer of US Magnesium filed for bankruptcy in September. His half-century Rowley fuse The plant on the western shore of Utah's famous lake could close permanently.
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The news comes as a relief to many environmentalists and the Great Salt Lake, but it also raises broader concerns about the supply chain for materials used in everything from car parts to wind turbines, scaffolding for solar panels and rockets.
“If we remove any [magnesium production] the capacity we have here means we are essentially completely dependent on imports,” said Simon Jowitt, Nevada state geologist and director of the Nevada Bureau of Mines and Geology.
Other industry insiders say the loss of magnesium in the U.S. isn't necessarily a cause for concern.
“They haven't actually produced in about three years,” said John Haack, president of Tennessee-based MagPro LLC, a magnesium metal recycling company. “The market has largely adjusted.”
Commercial magnesium is obtained from the evaporation of salty seawater or seawater, dolomite mining, or scrap metal recycling. Before closing its production facility in late 2021 due to equipment failure, US Magnesium claimed to be the largest source of virgin, non-recyclable magnesium in North America.
“There is no other major producer of primary magnesium in the United States,” Ron Thayer, the company's president, said in an affidavit filed in federal bankruptcy court on Sept. 10, “and primary magnesium is a critical component for United States defense contractors.” Restarting magnesium production at the Rowley plant would require a $40 million investment, Thayer later testified in testimony.
How much magnesium the company produced each year before shutting down is a closely guarded trade secret. US Geological Survey reported However, the United States is capable of producing 64,000 metric tons of primary magnesium metal this year, compared to China's 1.8 million tons.
The magnesium market experienced some disruption when US Magnesium mothballed its plant. Prices for the mineral have doubled in some regions in 2022, and an aluminum can plant in Indiana has temporarily closed due to a lack of U.S. magnesium production, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. But by 2023, companies found alternative suppliers of magnesium, and prices began to fall.
Francisco Kjolseth/The Salt Lake Tribune
Federal agency reports identified MagPro as a source of recycled domestic magnesium that it produces through recycling. But Haack said his company also produces primary magnesium, mainly for alloy production. He said his company is ready to ramp up production to meet demand.
“We didn’t advertise much. [it] the same amount,” Haack said. “But we are definitely producing primary products and are excited about getting into the market even more.”
However, the federal government appears unwilling to risk a drop in domestic magnesium production. And while the current market may have adjusted to the conservation of American magnesium, experts worry about what the future—and foreign competition—might hold. Moreover, magnesium is used in many products.
“It may not make things more expensive initially,” Jowitt said, “but it certainly will mean in the long run that China will control the price of magnesium for anyone in the U.S. who wants to use it.”
The US Department of Defense awarded $19.6 million grant Bay Area startup Magrathea Metals Inc. in 2023, just two years after closing a U.S. magnesium plant to “establish domestic production of magnesium” Jowitt pointed to the investment as a sign that the federal government views slowing metal production as a national security threat.
Magrathea, which is eyeing Utah as a potential pilot site for its technology, is currently producing magnesium metal from seawater salt.
Alex Grant, a chemical engineer and founder of Magrathea, said his company aims to replace the production lost due to the closure of US Magnesium by the end of the decade. The biggest challenge, he said, is finding local labor who understands the production process.
“Constructing these big capital projects,” Grant said, “is a muscle that the United States has lost because we haven’t developed it enough.”
The United States needs to continue producing and investing in magnesium, Grant added, if it wants to avoid devastating geopolitical consequences. This is especially true if China imposes export controls—a type of tariff, ban, or compulsory licensing—on the material, as it did recently. for some rare earth minerals. “Imposing export controls on magnesium will provoke a war, plain and simple,” Grant said.
Thayer, president of US Magnesium, declined to answer questions about the potential loss of market share to MagPro or Magrathea. However, he disagreed with the assertion that the market had adjusted to his plant's underperformance.
“The suspended … magnesium production has been replaced by Chinese/foreign imports,” Thayer wrote in an email, “rather than additional US volumes. This is not ideal for US supply chain independence.”
Over the years, the federal government has taken steps to protect American magnesium to keep its smelter operating and ensure continued supply of the critical mineral across the country. The Commerce Department has approved anti-dumping measures against magnesium from China starting in 1995, although it declined to impose similar tariffs on Israel, which produces magnesium from Dead Sea salts, in 2019.
However, US Magnesium blamed foreign competition in part for its bankruptcies filed in 2001 and this September.
Utah has long been grappling with environmental damage from a U.S. magnesium plant that polluted the air along the Wasatch Front, Utah's urban core, and contaminated land and groundwater near the Great Salt Lake.
“It may be that [building] a new plant, especially one supported by the federal government, is a better way forward than trying to restart something problematic,” Jowitt said.
Trent Nelson/The Salt Lake Tribune
Officials confirmed that in Utah, royalties from the sale of U.S. magnesium minerals have generated just under $1 million annually for the state over the past five years.
However, government resource managers moved to cancel the company's mineral lease and permanently shut down its operations. The Division of Forestry, Fire and Public Lands cited unauthorized storage of hazardous waste in and around the Great Salt Lake as grounds for revoking the lease, among other violations. Government regulations are suspended as the company goes through bankruptcy proceedings.
“Historically, working with U.S. Mag has always been a challenge,” said Lynn de Freitas, executive director of Friends of the Great Salt Lake, an environmental advocacy and watchdog group. “There’s a hell of a lot that needs to be cleaned up and dealt with.”
Efforts to manage U.S. Magnesium Superfund status and shore up waste ponds under a consent decree with the Environmental Protection Agency are also in limbo. It's also unclear what the plant's permanent closure will mean for Wasatch Front air.
The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's highly publicized 2023 report. found that US magnesium makes up up to 25 percent of winter particulate smog on the Wasatch Front.. Governor Spencer Cox, Republican, shortly thereafter asked the Environmental Protection Agency to turn on the plant for this reason, the region did not comply with the Clean Air Act. But by the time the report was published, the US Magnesium plant had been shut down for more than two years.
In emailed statements, Thayer denied that magnesium production had any impact on smog in the region. He added that inversion pollution remained the same after the plant closed at the end of 2021.
Environmental Protection Agency removed Utah's Wasatch Front from its air pollution list last month due to winter inversion smog. For the first time in 15 years, the region met Clean Air Act standards.
In an email, Carrie Womack, a NOAA scientist and lead author of the study on magnesium pollution in the U.S., said the results were based on modeling of one pollution event in 2017. Determining the impact of US Magnesium's closure on Utah air will require modeling over several years, Womack said. “Winter pollution has many factors, only one of which is anthropogenic. [human-caused] emissions,” she wrote.
However, magnesium production doesn't have to cause major environmental damage, says Grant, founder of Magrathea.
“Everything US Mag did on the environmental front that was an issue was a choice,” Grant said. “And they did it this way because they are owned by a company that doesn't care about anything other than making as much money as possible.”
