Tampa-based Nitradyn LLC, founded just last year, has landed a $581 million federal contract to build a Kentucky plant capable of turning out roughly 8 million pounds of military explosives every year.
The company will design, build and commission the Graham facility, which is expected to be fully up and running before the end of 2030. The plant will make IMX-104, an explosive formulation used across multiple defense applications.
Nitradyn’s work reaches further down the production chain, with the Tampa manufacturer also planning to make the three explosives blended into IMX-104 — RDX, NTO and DNAN — along with HMX.
Another major explosives project is already going up at the Graham site, where the U.S. Army is building a separate TNT plant. Nitradyn’s operation will sit alongside it, with excess capacity to make other explosive formulations.
“This contract is an investment in America’s ability to produce critical munitions,” Nitradyn President Braden Lusk said. “The incorporation of this project into the same site as the TNT project gives the Department of War a true advanced explosives manufacturing campus, with capability to produce a diverse range of formulations, and we look forward to bringing it all online.”
Behind Nitradyn is a partnership between two companies already working in explosives and defense.
The Tampa-headquartered manufacturer is a joint venture between Dyno Nobel Limited, a global explosives technology and services company serving the mining and resources industries, and Paligen Chemical LLC, a U.S. defense contractor.
Nitradyn was formed in 2025 to manufacture explosives, propellants and other energetic materials for defense and industrial customers. The company appointed explosives-industry executive Lusk as its inaugural president earlier this year.