Lawton City Council authorizes pilot cobalt plant

LAWTON, Okla. (KSWO) - The city of Lawton is one step closer to having a new Cobalt Refinery.

City Council approved the project in February. Wednesday, the Lawton Economic Development Authority, or LEDA, approved an amendment to the project’s contract.

”It’s gonna help them facilitate a pilot plant,” said LEDC President, Brad Cooksey. “Instead of going all in and building a big plant all at once, they’re gonna start off with doing a pilot plant. That’s going to allow them to do some things like getting a bank feasibility study, which will allow them then to go get more money, and more grants and things of that nature.”

After LEDA approved the amendment, it was taken to city council in a special meeting. Council unanimously approved work to begin.

If the pilot is successful, Westwin Elements will eventually build a full commercial plant.

“It’s the starting process of the bigger plant,” Cooksey said.

Westwin Elements will lease 40 acres in West Side Industrial Park. The company shared its gratitude towards the Lawton community for its partnership.

”Lawton is in good hands with this tech team,” said Westwin’s Vice President of External Affairs, Daniel Smith. “We are very grateful with the city of Lawton with their support on Westwin.”

The team also shared a word for those still concerned about the project as a whole.

”Ultimately if people have questions to not hesitate to reach out to any of those members of the City of Lawton, CCIDA, LEDA, LEDC -- they will focus and direct all of the questions they need to to us,” said the companies sales Vice President, Jeannie Bowden. “So we’ll be glad to be a part of anything we need to do to move forward.”

As an added measure, the company’s Chief Technical Officer, Mike Cox wrote a statement to share with the council. In part quote, he says:

“The Westwin Pilot plant is being designed by highly experienced and knowledgeable personnel who have spent many years both operating and managing production facilities, using similar technologies and processes, but on a much bigger scale.”

He continues on saying:

“We intend to comprehensively train our staff to treat the process with the highest degree of respect to ensure we have nothing but a positive relationship with the community.”

Smith said he’s anticipating the project’s ground breaking to happen on Tuesday, August 22nd.

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