Norwegian company's new Tulsa facility hopes to hire 360 by 2026

TULSA, Okla. — A Norwegian solar panel company will move rapidly to build its first North American facility on the east side of Tulsa International Airport starting this fall.

Airport officials and Governor Kevin Stitt announced on Wednesday NorSun will build on 60 acres of land across the street from the American Airlines Maintenance Base on North Mingo Road.

"They're on about 60 acres," said Daniel Regan, Tulsa Airports Real Estate and Development Director. "That should take care of them for a phase one and potentially a phase two site location."

Regan said the company chose Tulsa because of its central location. They have heavy demand on both the east and west coast and want to meet their demand equally in the middle of the country, he said.

"Geographically, just in general, the site in Tulsa just makes sense for them as a plant in the Americas," he said. "So they can serve North America, South America and just generally in the U.S. for both coasts."

They will start construction this fall, and Regan said it will be slightly bigger than its neighbor the Amazon Sorting Facility which will be to NorSun's south.

NorSun produces a critical product used in the creation of solar panels. There is currently a global bottleneck in the creation of solar panels because of a lack of the product NorSun needs to make more of, which it will do in Tulsa.

"It's one of the critical components of what is a solar cell," Regan said. "That is a wafer product. It's a very thin like product that is made of silicone, and it collects heat from the sun and coverts it into electricity."

Without the 5 GW silicon ingot and solar wafer, the solar panel cannot convert the sun's rays into electricity to be used in homes and businesses, FOX23 is told.

The land east of Mingo on the east side of the airport has sat vacant for years because the airport's master plan had long left it vacant out of hopes the City of Tulsa would grow, need, and want a third north-south runway.

However, Regan said the airport dropped the plan for an additional north-south runway around five years ago. That opened up the once reserved land to new economic development with the Amazon Sorting Center being the first to take advantage of the land once is was released by the Federal Aviation Administration for aerospace purposes.

The airport said it is not giving up on more aerospace industry coming to its property, and there are still plenty of areas close to taxiways and runways that the FAA still requires to be reserved for those purposes.

No job postings have been made yet for the NorSun Tulsa facility. Those are expected to be made closer to the end of 2025, just months before the building finishes construction in early 2026.