Update On Western North Dakota Fertilizer Plant -- November 12, 2016

From The Dickinson Press, data points:

• $500 million urea fertilizer plant
• construction began in 2014; now past the halfway mark
• location: within the sprawling industrial complex of Basin Electric Power Cooperative's Dakota Gasification Plant, northwest of Beulah in far western North Dakota
• the gasification plant: home of four power plants; two lignite coal mines; and the synfuels plant
• Mercer County: noted a substantial rise in taxable sales at a time when that metric plummeted across North Dakota
• new Coyote Creek mine noted in the story
• due to huge summer storm on July 3, 2016, the project was set back several months
• now scheduled to open in early 2018

I sure hope Trump sets out on a tour of the US when he visits those sites where America is already great. His first stop: the Bakken; the DAPL; the BEPC industrial complex; the steakhouse in Watford City.

Note: a reader, who has worked at the site, sent me this note:

It is more correct to say that Mercer County is the home of four power plants: Stanton Station, Leland Olds, Coyote and Antelope Valley Station.

Antelope Valley, BEPC, is "across the fence" from the gasification plant/synthetic fuels plant (one and the same), that shares some facilities with AVS.

The GP/SF plant has several components: ~ 137.5  mmscfd natural gas, plus CO2 for EOR, NH3, and numerous other by-products (see Dakota Gas website).

I had completely forgotten this fact about the plant: the Great Plains Synfuels Plant is home to the largest CO2 capture project in the world.