The first facility in the U.S. for producing dimethyl carbonate (DMC) and ethyl methyl carbonate (EMC), two materials essential to electric vehicle (EV) battery manufacturing, will be built by a Japanese firm.
Japan’s UBE Corporation has announced plans to invest $500 million toward founding a DMC and EMC plant at Cornerstone Energy Park in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana. The factory will be capable of producing 100,000 metric tons of DMC and 40,000 metric tons of EMC annually (EMC can be produced through DMC processing). Both chemicals are used in a lithium-ion EV battery.
UBE will launch a new company, UBE C1 Chemicals America (UCCA), to oversee the facility, which will also partner with Louisiana-based Cornerstone Chemical Company. The project will produce around 356 jobs, 300 of which will be construction-related, with the remainder split between UCCA and Cornerstone Chemical Company.
The founding of a U.S.-based firm to direct EMC and DMC manufacturing will help battery-powered car models constructed using the plant’s products to earn electric vehicle tax credits, which require a percentage of domestically sourced components and materials.
Due to a recent tightening of this domestic sourcing mandate, few models now qualify for government incentives, leading to a surge in U.S. construction projects similar to UBE’s that seek to create a native EV battery supply chain.
The policy is intended to wean the U.S. automotive industry off of Chinese suppliers due to a variety of economic, political, and moral concerns. UBE president and representative director Masato Izumihara also claimed in a statement that the company’s DMC and EMC manufacturing method has a “limited environmental impact” that results in “much fewer by-products compared to other existing plants and processes, particularly in mainland China.”
UBE expects to open the facility in the latter half of 2026 but will begin construction later this year.
