Pine Bluff Lands a $2.2 Billion Munitions Campus

Happy Tuesday.

The build this week: Hanwha Defense USA is planning a $2.2 billion munitions campus at Pine Bluff Arsenal that is expected to create close to 400 jobs over seven years.

Underneath: a $6.5 billion pharma groundbreaking, a $1.2 billion missile-production award, new nuclear capacity in Georgia and fresh capital for batteries, water and uranium.

The Lead

The big picture: Pine Bluff Arsenal is becoming a test case for how public infrastructure and private capital can expand the U.S. munitions base. Hanwha Defense USA plans to invest about $2.2 billion in a new advanced manufacturing campus on the Army installation in Arkansas.

Driving the news: The campus will focus on 155mm propellant charges and base-bleed units, spanning several stages of munitions production. Hanwha expects the project to create close to 400 jobs over seven years and opened the administration headquarters that will oversee local operations on Monday.

Why it matters: The model puts a private manufacturer inside an established Army industrial site with land, storage, production experience and a skilled regional workforce. The Army says lease revenue can flow back into installation infrastructure, while Hanwha adds domestic capacity for components that support artillery range and throughput.

What's next: Hanwha won the lease solicitation in January, but the eventual lease, construction schedule and hiring plan still have to follow. Those milestones will show how quickly the partnership moves from an office opening to production equipment on the ground.

Read the Hanwha Defense USA announcement.

Defense & Space

• Lockheed Martin received a PrSM Increment 2 IDIQ worth up to $1.2 billion as the Army moves the maritime-targeting missile from flight testing into production.

• BAE Systems completed the critical design review for the Space Force's $1.2 billion MEO Epoch 2 program covering 10 missile-warning spacecraft and their ground system.

• CAE USA won a $300 million recompete to provide C-130H aircrew training and sustainment through December 2035 at Little Rock and four other U.S. locations.

• HEO raised a $25 million Series B to extend its satellite-to-satellite imaging network into geostationary orbit.

Manufacturing & Automation

• Eli Lilly broke ground on a $6.5 billion Houston API plant that will employ more than 600 people, support 4,000 construction jobs and put $12.5 million into a San Jacinto College training partnership.

• EFC Gases & Advanced Materials broke ground on a 195-acre manufacturing campus in McGregor, Texas, for high-purity semiconductor inputs, with at least 65 initial jobs.

• Made Scientific acquired an operating 85,000-square-foot cell-therapy plant in East Norriton, Pennsylvania, bringing its East Coast network to 145,000 square feet and 15 qualified GMP suites.

• ES Foundry committed $1.5 million to MIT's Initiative for New Manufacturing after expanding its Greenwood, South Carolina, solar-cell operation to 3 GW of annual capacity and more than 400 jobs.

• Lightera announced an investment to nearly triple submarine optical-fiber capacity by 2029 at its manufacturing centers in Norcross, Georgia, and Brondby, Denmark.

• Infinium launched a methane-to-SAF platform that extends its commercially deployed Fischer-Tropsch system to renewable natural gas, biogas and other methane streams.

• SlipNOT introduced a sweepable non-slip flooring product for dry-processing facilities from its Detroit manufacturing base.

Energy & Materials

• Form Energy closed a $270 million credit facility to support growth and iron-air battery manufacturing at Form Factory 1 in Weirton, West Virginia.

• Bridge Green and Hartree signed an eight-year lithium-carbonate agreement estimated at $500 million to $1 billion, paired with an equity investment for planned U.S. and Indian recycling capacity.

• Georgia Power and Google proposed nuclear uprates totaling about 96 megawatts at Vogtle and Hatch under a subscription expected to produce roughly $900 million in customer benefits over the units' lives.

• Fluxnium raised a $7 million seed round to commercialize a U.S.-lab-developed fiber that adsorbs uranium from seawater.

• Rainmaker raised a $100 million Series B after reporting 82 validated cloud-seeding signatures that produced more than 145 million gallons of added freshwater.

• Vaulted Deep secured a $35 million debt facility backed by waste-service agreements and contracted carbon-removal revenue to add U.S. sites.

• i-80 Gold published a positive Granite Creek study showing a $118 million after-tax NPV at $2,750 gold as the northern Nevada mine ramps toward 30,000 to 40,000 ounces this year.

• The Bureau of Land Management issued interim guidance for recovering critical minerals associated with federal coal leases.

Dealbook

• Form Energy closed a $270 million credit facility for manufacturing growth.

• Rainmaker raised a $100 million Series B from NOA VC, Upfront Ventures, DCVC, Lowercarbon Capital and Dream Ventures.

• Kairos Power secured up to $100 million of equity and in-kind engineering from Samsung C&T for a Google-linked advanced-reactor project.

• HEO raised a $25 million Series B led by Beaten Zone Venture Partners.

• Fluxnium raised a $7 million seed round led by Congruent Ventures.

• Vaulted Deep secured a $35 million debt facility from Mediobanca.

• MetaOptics signed a warrant facility that could raise up to $10 million for its first U.S. front-end semiconductor line.

• AGV America obtained a $1.25 million invoice-factoring facility from Gateway Commercial Finance.

• Titan International agreed to sell its ITM business to USCO for up to about $285 million in total cash.

• Generation Mining secured full financing for the Marathon project, including about C$140 million from Canada Growth Fund.

• H.I.G. Capital and MISTRAS Group agreed to an approximately $866 million take-private of the industrial inspection and asset-integrity company.

Back Thursday.