Wellton cobalt plant could bring jobs, boost defense supply chain

A cobalt plant near Wellton could turn eastern Yuma County into a link in the electric-vehicle and defense supply chains, but the project’s real test is whether it moves from a promising announcement to a built factory with paychecks attached.

EVelution Energy says the facility would be the first commercial-scale solar-powered cobalt processing plant in the United States, planned for 138 acres near Tacna, between Tacna and Dateland, by Old Highway 80 and Avenue 47½E. The Yuma County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a special-use permit for the project on March 6, 2023, putting the county on record early as a backer of the idea.

The company says the plant could produce about 33,000 metric tons of EV battery-grade cobalt sulfate a year and help power as many as 470,000 electric vehicles annually. Earlier company materials put the workforce at 360 jobs over the life of the project, while later estimates tied to the broader buildout put the economic impact at more than $750 million and total direct, indirect and induced jobs at about 3,300.

That scale is why the project is being pitched as more than another industrial site in the desert. Federal critical-minerals guidance treats cobalt as essential to U.S. economic and national security, and the Department of Energy says cobalt is used in energy storage technologies. Navaid Alam, a company representative, has said the material also matters for defense uses such as jet engines and radar.

EVelution Energy says it has already taken a major commercial step by securing a binding five-year offtake agreement with Mitsui & Co., worth about $850 million at current market prices. The company says that deal gives the project a future buyer for much of its output and helps move the effort toward financing and construction.

The timing now matters for local leaders and workers in Wellton and Tacna. Company materials say construction is expected to begin at the end of 2025, with full operation in 2027. EVelution Energy has also said it expects to develop apprenticeship and training programs with Arizona Western College’s Wellton campus, and that pipeline got a boost when the college opened its 5,600-square-foot Future48 Workforce Accelerator in Wellton on May 6, 2026.

The project’s public selling points also include its utility footprint. EVelution says the plant would generate its own solar power, use about 28.4 megawatts of on-site renewable generation, recycle about 70 percent of its water, and may send surplus electricity to nearby farmers. For Yuma County, the question is no longer whether the cobalt plant is strategic in theory. It is whether the financing, construction schedule and workforce plan line up soon enough to make Wellton a real manufacturing win.