The United States government will invest 249 million dollars to complete the final stages of the Port MacKenzie Rail Extension in Alaska, Nova Minerals said in a release welcoming the award. The funding will deliver a 32 mile rail line connecting Port MacKenzie to the Alaska Railroad Corporation’s main line, providing the transport link for Nova’s planned antimony and critical minerals processing and refining hub at the port.
The grant, announced by Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy at Port MacKenzie on October 19, covers about 80 percent of the 311 million dollar project cost. State and local partners contribute the remaining 62 million dollars, including in kind support from the Matanuska Susitna Borough and cash from the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority and the Alaska Railroad Corporation, which is the grant recipient under the Federal Railroad Administration’s Consolidated Rail Infrastructure and Safety Improvements programme.
Nova’s interest is direct. The company plans a direct rail siding at Port MacKenzie so that antimony and other critical mineral ore and concentrate from the Alaskan interior can move to its planned processing and refining facility. A separate 43.4 million dollar Defense Production Act award supports Nova’s pilot scale antimony facility, and the company targets first production from that facility in 2027.
The project has a long history that tempers the headline. The state has already spent 180 million dollars on the extension, construction began in 2012 and halted in 2017 on state budget shortfalls, and railroad officials expect work to restart in May with completion possible as early as 2029. The federal money therefore completes a stalled link rather than starting a new one, and Nova’s refining hub remains a plan whose feedstock, permitting and financing are separate questions from the railway’s.