The country's only black powder plant operator is expanding its footprint in northwest Louisiana, with a little help from the Army.
Goex Industries this week received a $8,617,813 firm-fixed-price contract from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for facility modernization at the Louisiana National Guard’s Camp Minden. Goex in April committed to a $7.2 million investment in Camp Minden, formerly the home of the Louisiana Army Ammunition Plant, to lease and improve a 30,000-square-foot building owned by the state that has been vacant for more than a decade.
The Camp Minden facility, once Goex is in full swing, will manufacture potassium nitrate, barium nitrate, strontium nitrate, strontium oxalate, strontium peroxide, potassium chlorate, potassium perchlorate, and potassium sulfate-- vital compounds used in defense and other industries.
In April, state officials advised the new Goex plant at Camp Minden will lead to 51 new jobs in the area, while the black powder maker will retain its 22 current positions at its Louisiana operations. Work on the plant, at least in the portion funded by this week's Corp of Engineers award, has an estimated completion date of Aug. 8, 2026.
Goex traces its roots back to 1802 when E.I. Du Pont de Nemours broke ground on his original black powder plant in Delaware. Expanding to Belin, Pennsylvania in 1912, the Du Pont works provided military-grade black powder during World Wars I and II, as well as the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. Rebranded as Goex in the early 1970s, the plant was moved to Louisiana in 1997.
Purchased by the Hodgdon Powder Company in 2009, the plant's processes and equipment were modernized and sold powder under not only the Goex brand but also in the Olde Eynsford and Reenactor labels. In late 2021, Hodgdon announced it would cease production and wind down the Goex facility "while an evaluation process on the future of the black powder business takes place."
It was then that model rocket maker Estes Energetic stepped in and acquired the Goex brand in February 2022 and soon after restarted black powder production.
"Estes Energetics is excited to continue growing its role in the U.S. critical chemicals industrial base in partnership with the Department of Defense and state of Louisiana," said Karl Kulling, CEO of Estes Energetics, in April. "We are expanding our Camp Minden operations, where we recently restarted the only U.S. black powder plant which is well suited to this type of work."
