Kiesa Kay
MNJ Correspondent
Spruce Pine mountains have supplied the world with the pure quartz essential to creating silicon chips thanks to two powerful companies, Sibelco and the Quartz Corporation, but now the Quartz Corporation plant in Altapass has closed its doors.
Quartz announced the closure last week.
“Closing the Altapass plant has been a difficult decision,” said May Kristin Haugen, head of communication for The Quartz Corporation. “To ease this transition period, The Quartz Corp will begin by providing every affected employee with two weeks of emergency pay, with longer-term support forthcoming. We are reducing our workforce by 20 to 30 employees.”
Employees can apply for vacant positions at other plants, and the facility in the Micaville area will remain open, she said. The closure of the Altapass location will continue indefinitely.
The Quartz Corp United States operations are solely in Western North Carolina.
According to Passing the Torch, a finance and economics newsletter, “The entire $580 billion chip industry, every GPU training an LLM, every processor in your phone, every accelerator Nvidia ships, traces its material lineage back to a few hundred acres in Mitchell County.”
Making silicon wafers requires a melting process involving quartz of 99.999 percent purity, and that quartz is found in the pegmatite of Spruce Pine. The Quartz Corporation finds rock deposits and uses special, proprietary separation techniques to transform them into the purest form of silica on the planet, according to their website. A visit to the Minerals Museum in Spruce Pine shows one of the quartz crucibles essential to production of silicon wafers used in optical fiber, semiconductor, solar, and other applications. Business Research Insights Marketing overview estimated that in 2026, the global microchip market is valued at $649.23 billion.
Renewable energy relies on microchips.
“The solar energy industry, a significant business area for The Quartz Corp, continues dealing with ongoing losses as an overcapacity crisis impacts upstream supply chains,” Haugen said. “We have been patient in waiting for the situation to improve in the hope that the high purity quartz market will recover, but it is expected to remain stressed for the foreseeable future.”
The Solar Energies Industry Association reported in their Solar Market Insight Report for the fourth quarter of 2025 that they expect the national community solar market to contract by 8 percent every year through 2030.
“As new development opportunities for traditional community solar continue to decline, community solar developers report increased interest in exploring community-scale solar and storage development outside of traditional program models,” the report stated.
The Quartz Corporation and Sibelco, a Belgian-owned company, supply 80 percent of the global semiconductor-grade quartz market, according to IDN Financials. A year ago, IDN Financials shared that China had discovered more than 35 million tons of quartz reserves in Qinling, Henan Province, and Altay, in the Xinjiang Autonomous Region.
The plant that is now closing has a deep legacy in Spruce Pine. The Lawson United Feldspar and Mineral Company, which mined potassium feldspar, mica, and quartz, incorporated in 1957. Many mergers and acquisitions later, Imerys, a multinational corporation based in France with operations in 39 countries and more than 13,000 employees, merged quartz assets with Norsk Mineral, a family owned business in Norway with co-investments on three continents. In 2011, the Quartz Corporation in Spruce Pine began. Compworth estimates annual revenue at $70.9 million.
“Hopefully, quartz will be back and they will be strong again,” said Mitchell County Manager Allan Cook. “Market trends flip. We hope to get those jobs back.”
The Quartz Corporation has been a supporter of the community since 2011, donating to multiple nonprofits, including Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development, Marine Toys for Tots Foundation, Avery County 4H Saddle Club, Special Olympics of Mitchell County, and many others.
“From a remote corner of the world, we’ve taken on hundreds of projects and sponsorships over the years to make our community a better place to live, work, and play,” Haugen said. “Our continued dedication to this effort remains central to what we value most — caring for people, even in challenging times.”