U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said at an Oct. 20 campaign rally in Greenville, North Carolina, that Sibelco would invest hundreds of millions of dollars in quartz manufacturing for the semiconductor supply chain.
Reuters reported that Lutnick gave no exact amount, project site, construction schedule or jobs figure for the investment he described. He called the work “quartz manufacturing.”
Sibelco already mines and processes high-purity quartz in Spruce Pine, North Carolina. The company says the mineral is used to make fused quartz products, including crucibles for semiconductor production.
The company had outlined plans to increase capacity at Spruce Pine before Lutnick’s announcement. In a 2023 update, Sibelco put a preliminary estimate of about $500 million on a second expansion it then envisioned carrying out from 2024 through 2027. It had announced a separate $200 million capacity expansion earlier that year. The estimate and timetable were for the earlier proposal, not confirmed terms for the investment Lutnick described.
Sibelco linked those plans to customer demand and long-term sales agreements, including from the solar industry. In its first-half 2026 results, the company reported higher high-purity quartz sales to semiconductor customers but lower sales to the solar photovoltaic market. It cited excess capacity, reduced production, inventory drawdowns and price competition in the solar market.
