Critical Minerals Factbook
Facility

Birla Carbon Orangeburg Synthetic Graphite Plant

Birla Carbon's planned synthetic graphite plant at the Tri-County Industrial Site in Orangeburg County, South Carolina — a 435,000-square-foot, US$1 billion project announced on 8 October 2024 with 124 new jobs and an initial phase of 25,000 tons per year of synthetic graphite for anode active materials serving electric-vehicle, energy-storage and defence markets, with operations targeted for 2026. The DOE selectee of record is SKI US, Inc. (recipient address in Marietta, Georgia), which holds Office of Manufacturing and Energy Supply Chains award DEMS0000112 for a commercial-scale continuous heat treatment graphitization process; USAspending records US$150,000,000 obligated against US$580,189,345 of non-federal funding, with zero outlays. Post-October-2025 status check: the award record shows no termination and no outlay, was last modified 21 May 2025, and its period of performance ran to 16 January 2026; no source loaded on this pass records a termination, an extension, or a construction start.

Facts on this page last re-verified Aug 12, 2026 — the oldest verification date among its current claims. How we verify.

Location: Orangeburg, South Carolina, United States

Graphitization

Continuous heat treatment graphitization (planned)

Financed

State-of-the-art continuous heat treatment (CHT) graphitization technology for battery-grade synthetic graphite, per the DOE award description; initial phase sized at 25,000 tons per year

Material flow

Graphitizable carbon precursor → Synthetic anode material

Capacity

25,000 t/year · Product mass · Target · as of Oct 8, 2024

Qualification

No qualification claim. Status does not imply qualified output.

Sources