BATON ROUGE, La. (WAFB) – ExxonMobil announced a $100 million upgrade to its Baton Rouge Complex that will start producing a crucial aspect of semiconductor chip manufacturing. It’s a victory lap for LED this week, following the White House announcement of the new Hyundai steel plant outside of Donaldsonville.
“It’s just another element that gives us more heightened defense, frankly, security, and just independence and onshoring,” LED Secretary Susan Bourgeois said.
The upgraded Exxon facility will start producing high-purity isopropyl alcohol in 2027. This chemical is needed to clean and prevent damage to microchips – the tiny computers that run your car, cellphone, laptop, and just about every other digital device.
“So, while it’s not a chip factory itself, that level of purity of isopropyl alcohol is the critical component of manufacturing those chips,” Bourgeois said.
Common hand sanitizers are 99.9% pure. This isopropyl alcohol would be 99.999%. As our chips get smaller as the technology improves, higher purity is needed.
“It’s a tremendous example of not just the chemistry piece but the innovation piece of our legacy industries using innovation to expand, pivot, grow to the future of our technology,” Bourgeois said.
This all comes in the anticipation of a wide swath of tariffs by the Trump Administration, set to be announced on April 2. Investing in domestic manufacturing relieves the American supply chain of some of the reliance on imports, Bourgeois explained.
President Trump spoke about the incoming announcement alongside Governor Jeff Landry and House Speaker Mike Johnson at the White House on Monday.
“We’ll be announcing some additional tariffs over the next few days, having to do with uh automobiles, cars, and having also to do a little bit with lumber down the road, lumber and chips,” Trump said. “We’re going to get all those chip companies coming back. They’re already coming back without even doing it, so it’s been very good, but we’ll be announcing some others. But for the most part, April 2nd will be a big day. That’ll be reciprocal day, and we’ll be bringing some of the money back that’s been taken from us.”
The new Exxon project will use its existing workforce but bring in 45 temporary jobs during its construction phase. This, along with the Hyundai plant, are a part of LED’s new strategic plan – aimed at incentivizing outside investment in the state.
LED-2025-Comprehensive-Statewide-Strategic-Plan-FINAL.pdf
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