IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Defense Department Invests to
Re-Establish Domestic Production of Critical Propellant
AUG. 10, 2022
The Department of Defense’s Industrial Base Support (IBS)
office, through the Defense Production Act (DPA) Title III authority, is
supporting a Louisiana facility that produces black powder, a widely used
propellant in artillery, firearms, rocketry, pyrotechnics and numerous
weapons systems.
The $3.5 million investment by the Department of Defense (DoD)
will allow the facility, owned by Estes Energetics, through its Goex
subsidiary, to reopen after an accident shut down production. The total cost of
the project is $5.3 million over two years, and it will allow production to
resume at the Minden, Louisiana facility in two years or less.
This investment will bring a critical defense industrial base
asset back to production status and help Goex modernize the facility with the
intent of reducing operational risk and improving safety. Goex is currently the
only American source of black powder, which also has commercial applications in
model rockets, muzzleloading firearms, fireworks, and other industrial
processes.
“The Department of Defense’s DPA Title III Program Office
continues to deliver on its mission of reshoring and re-establishing domestic
production of materials critical to our nation’s national security needs and
strategic interests,” said Halimah Najieb-Locke, Deputy Assistant Secretary of
Defense for Industrial Base Resilience. “We are pleased to have the opportunity
to support this U.S. company as it works to restart the American-based supply
chain of this important propellant.”
The investment will also allow Goex to hire up to an additional
30 workers in Louisiana.
About the Department of Defense’s DPA Title III Program:
The DPA Title III Program for the Department of Defense is
dedicated to ensuring the timely availability of essential domestic industrial
resources to support national defense and homeland security requirements now
and in the future. The program works in partnership with the uniformed
services, other government agencies, and industry to identify areas where
critical industrial capacity is lagging or non-existent. Once a need is
identified, the program engages with U.S. and Canadian companies to mitigate
these risks using grants, purchase commitments, loans, or loan guarantees. By
executing its mission, the DPA Title III Program reduces the nation’s reliance
on foreign supply chains, ensures the integrity of materials supplied to the American
Warfighter, and helps create a resilient, robust, and
secure defense industrial base.
