U.S. Army boosts funding for new Kentucky TNT plant

The U.S. Army has ordered $30.8 million in additional work under a contract to build a domestic factory to manufacture TNT in Kentucky, bringing the deal’s total value to $435 million.

The modification, awarded to Paligen Aerospace & Defense LLC, based in Tampa, Florida, covers design, construction and commissioning work on the facility. Army Contracting Command in Rock Island, Illinois, is managing the contract, which is expected to run through February 15, 2029.

TNT is the primary explosive used to fill 155mm artillery shells, along with a range of other munitions from artillery rounds to aircraft bombs. The Army has described the facility as the first domestic TNT production site in the United States since the 1980s, when the Radford Army Ammunition Plant in Virginia halted TNT manufacturing. The Army originally awarded the $435 million contract in November 2024 to Paligen’s predecessor company, then known as REPKON USA, without competitive bidding.

The facility is being built at a commercial site in Graham, Kentucky. According to Paligen, the plant is designed to use automation, digitization and a new waste neutralization process, with construction and full operation targeted within 36 months of the original award, putting completion around early 2027. The award was funded in part through the 2024 Ukraine Supplemental appropriation.

Paligen Technologies, the parent company formed when REPKON USA rebranded in March 2026, has expanded significantly since the TNT contract was first awarded. The company acquired a 38-acre manufacturing facility in Garland, Texas, from General Dynamics Ordnance and Tactical Systems in March 2025, along with defense engineering firm McCormick Stevenson Corporation. Paligen now employs more than 400 people across facilities in Florida, Kentucky and Texas.

The push to rebuild domestic TNT capacity has gained added urgency since October 2025, when an explosion destroyed an Accurate Energetic Systems facility in Humphreys County, Tennessee, which had been supplying TNT to the Pentagon. The loss of that plant left the Army without any operating domestic TNT source while the Kentucky facility remains under construction.

The Army’s investment in domestic TNT production has come as the service has separately struggled to rebuild its broader artillery shell manufacturing base. ProPublica reported that General Dynamics failed to get two 155mm shell production lines in Mesquite, Texas, operating as planned before the Army shut the effort down, even as the company continued receiving other Army contracts totaling $2.5 billion since that shutdown.