Link to Bismarck Tribune here.
The Three Affiliated Tribes announced Wednesday that it has been given permit approval to take control of a piece of reservation land to build an oil refinery.
U.S. Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar joined with tribal leaders at tribal headquarters to announce the permit approval, which brings a refinery one step closer to reality.
Nine years ago the tribe had requested that the Bureau of Indian Affairs, a part of the Department of the Interior, accept the acreage into a trust. The trust will allow the Interior department to own the land while allowing the tribe to control and manage it.
The tribe has wanted to use a 469-acre piece of land near Makoti to build the refinery and produce feed for the tribe’s buffalo herd. Plans call for the refinery to be built on a 190-acre portion of the land. The other land will be used for the buffalo.
The permitting process, which was nearly a decade in the making, opens the door for the construction of a new refinery in more than 30 years.SecInterior Ken Salazar sounded jubilant in the news story; he should have been dismayed that it took nine years to get a permit.
Data points:
- MHA Nation Clean Fuels Refinery
- $400 million refinery
- capacity of 13,000 bbls/day
- Bakken oil --> diesel, gasoline, propane (I still don't see the "clean fuels" aspect of this, yet)
- refinery site: along US Highway 23, on the edge of the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation
- 800 to 1,000 jobs during construction phase
- about 140 permanent jobs
- nine years to get the permit
Let's see 9 years ago was the 108th congress which Bush enjoyed a majority in both the house and senate. You would think with an energy friendly administration having control of both houses, an idea like building a new refinery would get lots of support.
ReplyDeleteMaybe its the behind the scenes activities that make it hard to understand. I was very surprised to hear recently that Harold Hamm was supporting environmental groups to shut down the Keystone XL pipeline because he did not want Oklahoma flooded with cheap Canadian oil.
A new refinery would mean more competition and if one new one is built maybe more would follow.
You would think ...
Delete“This is a historic day for the United States for a number of reasons,” Salazar said. “It’s a proud day as we move forward with the president’s all-of-the-above energy strategy.”
ReplyDeleteThe forked tonged of the administration wagging again. Their all-of-the-above energy strategy is noise at best. What they mean is all above the ground.
The credit goes to The Affiliated Tribes and their impressive Chairman Tex hall. Their persistence has paid off. It has happened because they would not be discouraged by all the roadblocks and hurdles imposed by the Federal Government‘s Department of Interior and others.
The President’s all-of-the-above energy strategy, you kidding me? They sure know how to take credit for everything. Arrogance has no bounds. Must be an election year.
With his recent trip to Wyoming, also, Salazar has sure been spending a lot of time out of Washington, stumping in the far west. Maybe he's just re-acquainting himself with where he grew up in the US.
DeleteHopefully, after January 20th, he will get the opportunity to spend more time out there (here? -- depending where you are reading this).
Growing up within a stones throw practically of the site of the refinery, the 10 years is actually just to get the permit. This thing has been in the "plans" for 20 years nearly. It came out in the early 90's when there was a slight uptick in oil activity in the Plaza/Parshall/Raub area. This was just prior to the major undertaking of the geological survey that was used to get the Bakken off the ground too(I'm assuming since they reference a geological survey done in the mid 90s in the figuring out the key to the Bakken that was discovered), which probably would have happened sooner if the price of oil hadn't fallen out the bottom in the late 90's. Another issue why it took so long is the tribe started the permitting process with the plan to use Canadian oil sands, when Bakken hit in 06 or 07 they decided that would be more economical using Bakken, but went a year or two before realizing they had to restart the entire process again, due to the entirely different processes required to refine Bakken vs. oil sand oil. So permitting from EPA is entirely different for the refinery than what they were designing for originally. Be interesting to see if they ever get this thing to fly, believe there are still a few hurdles yet to go.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great history of the permitting process.
DeleteYes, I am sure it is a two-way street -- the folks requesting the permit and the the folks granting the permit. I know it is not the Federal government alone responsible for the time it takes to get a permit.
Good, bad, indifferent: it will be interesting to see if this refinery does get off the ground.
Thank you for taking time to comment.