Western powers launch at least 24 projects to reshore explosives production

Trump proposes $50 billion for domestic critical minerals and energetics

NATO countries are launching at least 24 new projects to bring the production of explosives and propellants back to the West, according to information assembled by The Wall Street Journal, as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine highlighted the alliance’s lack of sovereign munitions production capacity. The U.S. currently operates only one propellant factory, a World War II-era plant in southern Virginia, and none has been built since the early 1970s. Europe has a single TNT manufacturing plant — down from seven after the Cold War — and the U.S. relies entirely on imports for its TNT, particularly from Poland.

The Trump administration has proposed spending almost $50 billion of its $1.45 trillion defense budget on developing domestic sources of critical minerals, chemicals and energetics essential for weapons production, according to the Journal. Three new factories are planned for Arkansas, a center of U.S. weapons production. Among the projects, Regulus Global aims this year to start work on a site to produce triple-base propellant, a particularly powerful variant that the U.S. hasn’t produced since 1986, said Will Somerindyke, the company’s chairman. Plans for the factory have not previously been reported, the Journal said.

U.S.-based ammunition-component maker D&M Holding is already building a propellant factory in Arkansas and is in talks with the Pentagon to help finance it, according to a person familiar with the matter. South Korea’s Hanwha Defense also plans to build a propellant factory there.

The production push covers all types of energetics — the propellants and explosives that launch projectiles and destroy targets. TNT, a common explosive, will soon be produced in the U.S. for the first time in decades, and three companies are building TNT plants in Europe. The U.K. plans to complete at least six new energetics factories by 2030.

Making explosives is dangerous, and Western companies face high regulatory hurdles. A blast at Accurate Energetic Systems, a Tennessee manufacturer, killed 16 workers last year. In Europe, regulations can delay projects for years. Joakim Sjöblom, a former software executive who turned to explosives after being surprised by the gap between European and Russian production, told the Journal he spent two years and more than $2 million to obtain permits for a TNT factory in rural Sweden. Swebal, his company, received permission in January but now faces appeals from local residents and does not expect production before late 2028. Russia, he noted, faces fewer constraints: “They can do it in one to two years.”

Supplies of explosives have tightened as Ukraine, Russia and the West increased munitions production, particularly artillery shells. Clark Mica, president of the Institute of Makers of Explosives, a trade body with mainly commercial members, said the cost of TNT has increased almost fourfold since 2024. After two years of fighting, U.S. customers of the Polish TNT maker Nitro-Chem received notice the company could not guarantee shipments because of the Ukraine war, Mica said. Nitro-Chem declined to comment.

A U.S. attempt to increase production of the explosives RDX and IMX is delayed by roughly eight years, with the target date slipping from last year to around 2030, an Army spokesman told the Journal. Production remains at 2017 levels despite ongoing projects. Helmut Rauch, chief executive of the defense unit at Diehl Group, a German company making missiles and artillery shells, said the supply of RDX is a concern for Europe.

“Production was based around a 40-day intense war, but what Ukraine tells us is you need to go on and on” in modern conflict, said Neelesh Tungar, chief executive of Kalyani Strategic Systems, an Indian industrial conglomerate that produces 60,000 shells monthly. “Everyone is looking for surge capacity,” he told the Journal.

After the Cold War, the U.S. and Europe closed most of their explosives factories and outsourced their dangers to Asia. The U.S. in 1978 had 32 government-owned ammunition plants, according to the U.S. Army Sustainment Command, and now has 11. The Kremlin relaxed planning regulations for explosive-makers after its 2022 invasion of Ukraine, the Journal reported, while Western companies face environmental, safety and permitting requirements that add years to project timelines.

“The U.S. and Europe don’t have that supply chain, meaning they don’t have sovereignty over their own ammunition,” said Regulus Global’s Somerindyke.