Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond has filed to block a proposed $4 billion aluminum smelter in Inola, just days after President Donald Trump endorsed one of his rivals in Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary.
Drummond, a gubernatorial candidate, filed the petition June 2 in Rogers County District Court against Century Aluminum Co. and the project operating entity, Aluminum Oklahoma LLC d/b/a Oklahoma Primary Aluminum LLC. It is asking the court to stop the smelter on two grounds: anticipated public nuisance and threat of pollution under state environmental law.
Gov. Kevin Stitt (R), who has championed the project since announcing it with Emirates Global Aluminum (EGA) in 2025, accused Drummond of making the filing in retaliation after Trump’s endorsement of one of Drummond’s rivals.
“As soon as President Trump threw his support behind the governor’s race, Drummond dropped out and showed his true colors,” Stitt said in a statement to KTUL. “Now he’s turning his machine against one of President Trump’s top priorities, retooling his office to settle scores rather than serve Oklahomans.”
The plant is a joint venture between Century Aluminum and EGA, announced Jan. 26 for Inola’s Port of Tulsa. Designed to produce more than 750,000 metric tons of primary aluminum per year, more than double current U.S. production, the facility would create 1,000 permanent direct jobs and 4,000 construction jobs, with construction expected to begin in late 2026.
The project has received significant federal, state and local support. The US Department of Energy pledged a grant of up to $500 million; Oklahoma has put together an incentive package worth up to $255 million; and the City of Inola created a tax increment financing district to support the development, in addition to tax credits and property tax exemptions. In February, the developers brought in Bechtel for preparatory engineering work, including modularization planning and logistics. Bechtel is also coordinating with sustainability consultancy ERM on environmental and social permitting efforts.
The petition identifies EGA as a UAE state-owned company, equally owned by the sovereign wealth funds of Abu Dhabi and Dubai. “The controlling hand behind the largest smelter ever proposed on American soil does not belong to the people of Oklahoma, or even to Americans, but to a foreign sovereign more than seven thousand miles away,” the petition states.
Primary aluminum smelting is described in the filing as “among the most polluting heavy industrial activities known,” releasing fluorides, sulfur dioxide, fine particles, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, perfluorocarbons and hazardous spent potliner. It claims the smelter’s pending air quality permit application authorizes emissions of approximately 425 tons of hydrogen fluoride per year, which the EPA classifies as extremely hazardous.
The petition focuses particularly on the effects of fluoride on livestock, which may ingest it—and accumulate it irreversibly—through the forage, resulting in dental and skeletal fluorosis.
“For a livestock operation, chronic exposure to fluoride is a slow sentence of doom, for the herd and for the livelihoods that depend on it,” the petition states, noting that ranching is Oklahoma’s largest agricultural sector and Rogers County is at the heart of that industry. The facility would be located approximately 3 miles from Inola schools, homes and farms.
Beyond the projected impacts, the petition points to Century Aluminum’s operational history at other facilities. He cites a South Carolina smelter where residents sued the company in 2023 over alleged pollution impacts and where Century later paid more than $940,000 to settle claims brought by 719 nearby property owners. The petition also notes that South Carolina regulators fined the company more than $360,000 for air pollution violations and reporting errors.
In Kentucky, the filing cites roughly 30 violations over roughly the past 12 years involving emissions limits, hazardous waste management, monitoring and testing failures, emergency planning deficiencies and water quality violations.
Drummond argues that the company’s compliance history raises concerns about the potential impacts of the proposed Inola smelter on nearby residents, agricultural operations and the environment. The challenge also focuses on the energy demands of the project.
According to the filing, the smelter would require more than 1,000 megawatts of continuous power (more electricity than many Oklahoma cities consume), putting what Drummond describes as an extraordinary strain on the regional grid served by Public Service Company of Oklahoma and it can increase costs and limit energy reliability across the region.
“A primary aluminum smelter does not belong in a community’s backyard and its emissions do not respect property lines,” Drummond said. “The injury is imminent, it is serious and it is irreparable.”
