By Ben Tobin – Greater Triangle Growth Reporter, Triangle Business Journal
Hundreds of jobs are on the way to Chatham County as a wire manufacturer is planning to build a new plant there.
Through a yet-to-be-formed subsidiary, Houston-based MetOx International is planning to invest roughly $193.75 million in a new facility to expand its manufacturing capacity, according to a Tuesday meeting of the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s Economic Investment Committee.
The investment will create 333 jobs with a minimum average wage of just above $75,000. The committee voted to approve state incentives worth about $3.2 million for the investment — identified as “Project Buffer.”
It’s unclear where in Chatham County the manufacturing plant will be. Michael Smith, president of the Chatham County Economic Development Corp., said the company is “considering two sites here for a final location.”
Representatives of MetOx did not immediately respond to requests seeking comment.
Other sites considered for the facility were in Houston, Ohio, Florida, Colorado and South Carolina. The company looked at a number of factors, including the quality of available labor, utility costs, and outcomes for public-private and academic partnerships at the state and local level.
Founded in 1998, MetOx is the “pioneering company in the field of high-temperature superconducting wire technology,” according to Mark Poole, the director of the Commerce Finance Center for the North Carolina Department of Commerce. The company is known for its Xeus wire, which can make “transmission cables up to 10-times more efficient than traditional copper cables, significantly reducing the weight of wind turbines by approximately 40 percent and improve the efficiency of large-scale data centers,” Poole said.
With its new factory, MetOx plans to expand production capacity for the Xeus wires. In September, the company announced it closed a $25 million Series B Extension, with Centaurus Capital, backed by billionaire John Arnold, and sustainability-focused group New System Ventures signing on as new investors.
“Project Buffer represents a tremendous step forward in building the energy generation, transmission and distribution infrastructure of the future,” Poole said during Tuesday’s meeting. “The output of project buffer will be used to expand the capacity of America’s aging grid, enabling the interconnection of renewable generation, electrified transportation and the AI data centers essential to the burgeoning energy transition and data revolution.”
Chatham County has two megasites — industrial parks with 1,000 or more acres. Triangle Innovation Point park, on the eastern side of the county, is slated to host a stalled project from electric vehicle manufacturer VinFast (Nasdaq: VFS), which is planning a manufacturing plant that could one day employ thousands.
On the western side of the county is the Chatham-Siler City Advanced Manufacturing Site, which holds Wolfspeed’s (NYSE: WOLF) semiconductor manufacturing plant as well as an operation by Innovative Construction Group.
Ben Tobin covers real estate and economic development in the Greater Triangle, focusing on the counties outside Wake and Durham. Have a tip? Reach him at btobin@bizjournals.com or (919) 327-1012.
The preceding article originally appeared on December 17, 2024 at the Triangle Business Journal’s website and is made available here for educational purposes only. This constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 106A-117 of the U.S. Copyright Law. Photo above courtesy of MetOx International.
