South Korean defense contractor will build $2.2 billion factory at Pine Bluff Arsenal

WHITE HALL — A South Korean company announced Monday it will build its first United States facility that produces artillery ammunition at Arkansas’ Pine Bluff Arsenal, creating about 400 jobs with an average wage of $50 per hour over seven years.

Hanwha Defense USA’s $2.2 billion factory “is the kind of transformational investment Jefferson County and the Delta need,” Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders said at Monday’s news conference and ribbon-cutting ceremony that celebrated the opening of new administration headquarters. 

The Army awarded the company a lease solicitation for a munitions campus at the Pine Bluff Arsenal in January, and the new office is the first step in that project, according to a Hanwha news release.

The factory will build propellant charges and base bleed units for 155-millimeter ammunition, according to the release. CEO Michael Coulter said the company’s output “will enhance the speed and range” of the U.S. Army’s weaponry at a time when the federal government aims to bolster its military industrial base.

The Pentagon has been pushing the defense industry to replenish military stockpiles depleted by the war in Iran.

“Our goal is to maximize automation to ensure safe manufacturing and enhanced quality,” Coulter said. “The idea is to transform Pine Bluff Arsenal into a modern asset that advances both national defense priorities and U.S. Army priorities, including readiness that protects America’s warfighter.”

Hanwha’s choice of Pine Bluff for the factory “represents what can happen when Army and industry and our local communities come together around a shared objective,” said Jordan Gillis, Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment.

The Hanwha factory is one of four capital investment projects, totaling $6 billion, planned for Jefferson County over the next three to five years, Arkansas Commerce Secretary Hugh McDonald said.

The state’s business discussions with Hanwha began in March 2024 with help from U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman and U.S. Sens. Tom Cotton and John Boozman, all Republicans.

Those discussions continued in May 2025 when Westerman, Cotton and Boozman traveled to Japan, Taiwan and South Korea with the goal of “convincing people that this is the arsenal of the future,” said Westerman, whose district includes Jefferson County.

Sanders said Monday that she met with Hanwha leaders in July at the Farnborough International Airshow in England, part of a three-country overseas trade mission.

The Pine Bluff Arsenal was built in 1941, the same year the United States entered World War II. The facility “remains a key national security asset that is ripe for greater defense investment,” Cotton said in Hanwha’s news release.

South Arkansas is a hub of defense contracting. The 2,000-acre L3Harris arms manufacturing campus in East Camden produces more than 115,000 rocket motors per year. 

The region is also home to a $33 million missile plant, a joint venture that Raytheon Technologies and Israel-based Rafael Advanced Defense Systems announced in October 2023.

In February, U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth praised Arkansas’ munitions industry at the L3Harris plant as part of a national speaking tour.