LAWTON – Area residents flocked to McMahon Memorial Auditorium recently, armed with questions about Westwin Elements’ plans to build a nickel-and-cobalt refinery in Lawton.
Westwin representatives fielded questions from the public during a town hall meeting Oct. 11 at the auditorium. The company and Lawton’s economic development entities hosted the event, which was designed to provide more information about Westwin’s plans and answer questions from residents.
Westwin is planning to build a small refinery, also known as a pilot plant, south of the west industrial park on West Lee Boulevard. The pilot plant will focus on processing nickel ore to produce nickel powder, which is used for a variety of industrial applications.
The City of Lawton and the Comanche County Industrial Development Authority will loan Westwin $3 million for construction of the pilot plant, with the city contributing $1 million and the CCIDA contributing the remaining $2 million.
Construction on the pilot plant is slated to begin this month, and the facility is expected to be up and running by the second quarter of 2024. A larger version of the pilot plant may be operating by 2026, and a full-scale refinery may be open for business by 2030.
The company’s ultimate goal is to build a commercial refinery, either in Lawton or another location, that would help meet the United States’ need for cobalt and nickel without depending on other countries.
Job creation
One man in the audience wanted to know if the pilot plant would provide jobs for Lawton residents.
“Are you guys going to guarantee that those jobs are going to come from people in this community, or are you guys going to look to friends from Canada that have jobs?” he asked. “Because you guys obviously left there to come here.”
Westwin’s vice president of technology, Xavier Wong, said the company is working with Cameron University on establishing training programs for students interested in working at the pilot plant.
“We are trying to form programs with them right now,” he said.
John Shelegey, vice president of operations, said several men in his family had worked for refineries, and he would like to see Westwin provide a similar experience for Lawton residents.
“We just want to replicate that generational employment and keep it in the community, keep it sustainable,” he said. “Step one is we go for the students, which we’ve already initiated that. It’s a really important piece for this project.”
The city’s redevelopment agreement with Westwin calls for the pilot plant to employ at least 40 full-time workers in 2024 and at least 45 more workers by 2026, for a total of 85 workers.
Another man sought more information about what steps Westwin would take to safeguard Lawton’s water supply.
“Will we have test wells around the facility so we can keep an eye on the water and protect our groundwater?” he said.
Wong said the company is working with the Oklahoma Department of Environmental Quality to ensure the pilot plant complies with the state’s groundwater regulations. He added that the company will drill test wells in the area to monitor the groundwater and check to see if there is any unexpected seepage from the plant.
“We will be testing all water within the water treatment facility,” Wong said.
Company officials have said the pilot plant will use very little water to process nickel, and most of the water usage will come from showers.
‘What’s next?’
Another man in the audience asked the Westwin team about the company’s plans after the pilot plant is up and running.
“Are we going to be raised from a pilot plant to a huge processing plant, or are we just going to have this one pilot plant and that’s it?” he said.
Wong said when the pilot plant is open for business, the company will manage the plant, produce samples of nickel powder and continue raising funds for a scaled-up operation. Eventually, the company plans to build an even larger refinery.
“It will go up in scale over a longer period of time,” he said. “So you go from a pilot plant to a model plant to a full-scale refinery.”
Safety concerns
Other people said they were worried about emissions from the nickel carbonyl process – the method the pilot plant will use to process nickel ore.
One woman, who said she was a long-time resident of Lawton, wanted to know how the plant would handle the residue left over from the refining process.
“The end residue, how will it leave this city?” she asked.
Shelegey said the residue will be bagged safely during the refining process and shipped to a customer.
“It will still contain payable metals,” he said. “We will not be processing that in a pilot plant. We will be selling that material to a third party.”
Shelegey said the amount of residue would be small enough that the leftover material could be shipped by truck, and the truck’s route through the city would depend on the customer’s location.