Miffed! Most Depressing Graphic Of The Week -- May 5, 2017

Here's the graphic:

The story:

On April 19, the Iowa Fertilizer Company (IFCo) announced the start of production at its plant in Wever, Iowa (sits on the Illinois state line, and near the Missouri state line to the south).

The $3 billion plant is estimated to produce 1.5 to 2 million metric tons (MMmt) of nitrogenous fertilizer products annually, using natural gas as both a feedstock and a fuel.

According to IFCo, it's Wever plant is the first world-scale, greenfield nitrogen fertilizer facility built in the United States in more than 25 years.

IFCo's parent company, OCI N.V., produces natural gas-based fertilizers throughout the world and is based in the Netherlands. Foreign investment in the U.S. industrial sector is part of a growing trend in natural gas-intensive manufacturing, such as chemical manufacturing. One of the factors supporting this trend is an extended period of low U.S. natural gas prices, which have made it economical for companies to expand or construct new facilities.

The first such plant in IOWA?

• the state most associated with Hillary
• the state most associated with wind energy
• the state most associated with anti-fossil fuel energy
• one of the states adamantly opposed to the DAPL pipeline

Meanwhile in the state that produces so much natural gas, that supports fossil-fuel, that supports the DAPL, and the only state that has a state bank that could fund a big project, and on and on, here's the most recent update of a fertilizer plant in North Dakota:

Data points from The Grand Forks Herald:

• Northern Plains Nitrogen fertilizer plant
• Grand Forks, ND
• $2 billion
• path unclear
• "seed money" in place
• project first announced in 2013
• had hoped to have it up and running sometime this year
• low commodity prices driving farmers away from corn and wheat (use nitrogen) -- one can always find an excuse not to do something
• farmers moving to soybeans (don't use nitrogen)
• promoters remain optimistic
• other suppliers too far away: Iowa and Mexico

Maybe Mexico is a bit far, but Iowa? No, not really. Except you have to go through Minnesota on Warren's trains.

 What are they thinking in North Dakota?

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The Most Magical Photograph Of The Week

The butterflies have hatched:

One Industry Where The US Is Catching China -- Fertilizers -- WSJ -- February 13, 2017

I was unaware that we were playing catch-up. From The Wall Street Journal:

• US fertilizer production capacity increased by 24% last year
• US output of urea surged by 10% boosted by a number of new and expanded plants in states from Iowa to Louisiana
• meanwhile, China, the world's #1 fertilizer producer, saw its production slump by 7% and exports drop by more than a third
• US shale revolution: accounts for the US surge in fertilizer production
• yes: due to fracking and horizontal drilling for natural gas

Folks may remember that Hillary pledged to ban fracking if elected president. 

Much, much more at the link.

Random Update On the Lignite (Coal) To Natural Gas Story In North Dakota -- February 7, 2016

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

Even as western North Dakota watches nervously while its once-booming oil industry wallows in the doldrums, a massive construction project centered around coal is quietly hitting its stride.

A $500 million urea fertilizer plant that will take 750 workers to build and 60 employees to operate can’t take up all the slack let loose in the Oil Patch, but it is providing a pretty good economic spin all its own.

The plant is under construction north of Beulah, adjacent to Basin Electric Power Cooperative’s synfuels plant, which through the wizardry of chemistry turns black lignite into natural gas.

The new plant will combine some of the carbon dioxide and ammonia created in that liquification process to make dry urea pellets used as fertilizer in the production of wheat, soybeans and corn.

By the way, did you all notice the interesting data point at this post, posted yesterday? It's the second linked story at that post: 

Less than 0.1 percent of global production has been halted to date even though 3.5 percent of global supply is currently cash negative.

I focused on the first data point: that "less than 0.1% of global production has been halted ..." That data point alone is quite incredible, I think. Less than 0.1% of global oil has been halted due to the Saudi Surge/Slump.

But last night after going through the blog looking for typographical errors, I saw that I had missed the big story: "... only 3.5% of global supply is currently cash negative." 

Monday Night Links -- July 13, 2015

I'll come back to these stories later, but they were sent to me by readers and I don't want to lose them.

This one has a lot of great data points regarding mandated renewable energy in Minnesota. ArgusMedia is reporting that Minnesota power will idle the Taconite coal plant.

The second link is to a renewable energy site suggesting things aren't as rosy as some would like to think when it comes to renewable energy. Renewables - SeeNews is reporting that global investment in renewables during 2Q15 decreased by [an astounding] 28% year-on-year. The source says the 29% drop is due, in part, to the strong dollar. It's also due in part to the fact that without government subsidies, wind/solar energy in the US isn't going to hack it. In addition, the article did not mention that Saudi Arabia recently "delayed" (i.e., scuttled) their massive solar energy program, probably due to cash flow issues, but probably also due to .... Sam Kinison would know what I'm talking about ... sand.

This is a nice feel-good article for Texans. Investors.com updates the "Texas miracle." It looks like a press release put out by Governor Perry's presidential election team:

Under Gov. Rick Perry's leadership, Texas created nearly 28% of all new jobs nationally — the majority of which paid average or above average wages.

Much has been said recently about the Texas economy being tested by a drop in oil prices. As the nation's largest producer of oil and gas, it's natural that Texas would feel the effects of a 45% decline in oil prices over the last year.

The state's oil and gas industry payrolls have decreased by more than 2,000 jobs over the last six months through May — the largest six-month job loss for the industry since the Great Recession.

Meanwhile, growth in other Texas industries has exploded as a result of the state's low-tax environment, stable rules and regulations, skilled workforce, and responsible legal environment that have come to be known as the Texas Model. While Perry was in office, CEO Magazine ranked Texas the No. 1 state to do business for ten years in a row, and 1.7 million companies filed to do business in the state.

Austin has become the new Silicon Valley and Texas surpassed California in 2012 for the first time ever to become the nation's largest high-tech exporting state.

Houston is a medical mecca — its Texas Medical Center is the largest medical center in the world — and the state is top ranked for employing biotech-related scientists and doctorate holders.

Dallas is a global transportation hub, and the state is home to the headquarters of two international airlines and two of the world's busiest airports.

And I think Grapevine, Texas, our home, is the Christmas capital of Texas. It is certainly the wine capital with six wineries and/or wine-tasting rooms on four city blocks of Main Street.

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Jamestown $3 Billion Fertilizer Plant On Hold

Meanwhile, back in North Dakota, that $3 billion fertilizer plant has been put on hold while water issues are worked out. The Grand Forks Herald has the story.

According to a reader: at one time the Spiritwood site in Jamestown, ND,  was going to have  --

• a malting plant- done 
• a power plant- done, but mothballed day one. I don’t know if it operates -- see below
• an ethanol plant- scrapped -- see below
• a large Feed lot- scrapped 

The plan was to have all by-products from one plant, go to the next plant.

Update, July 18, 2015: outstanding news -- another reader tells me that the power plant is up and running (link here); and the ethanol plant came on-line this spring (link here). I will also post a stand-along post here in case other information becomes available.

This article at Prairie Biz Magazine may help explain the "confusion." The plant was completed in 2011 but then sat idle until recently.

The 99-megawatt coal-fired electric generating plant was completed in August 2011. The plant went through a testing and commissioning process and then was shut down because of lack of demand for electricity in Minnesota. The plant has sat idle since.

Construction on the Spiritwood Station generating plant, which is being built near Spiritwood, N.D., began in 2006. The plant cost about $350 million to construct and was intended to produce steam for use at the Cargill Malt plant and electricity for the Minnesota markets.

A huge "thank you" to this reader for providing the update.

Idle Chatter -- April 17, 2015

I'm not from the Jamestown area, so I don't know what's going on there, and I don't see much Jamestown news that hits the regional or national news media outlets.

In late 2006, or late 2007, I contacted Menard's by phone and by mail to talk to them about an opportunity for a Menard's in Williston. Whoever I spoke to told me "No, but thank you for calling." And some boilerplate that they continue to look for retail location operations.

It was about two to three years later before "we" heard that Menard's was considering coming to Williston; this was during the height of the boom. Regular readers know how long it took for Menard's to make the decision. We're eight years into the North Dakota Bakken boom, and 15 years into the Bakken boom (beginning in Montana) and Menard's is finally opening in the Bakken this summer.

I always thought Menard's was late to the game. Menard's had a store in Minot and that's probably what kept them in the Bakken game but nevertheless, it's always been my feeling that Menard's was late to the Bakken. Of course, at that time, their challenge would have been finding quality employees.

The fact that Menard's is moving into Jamestown tells me that the movers and shakers know something big is going to hit Jamestown. We all know about the proposed fertilizer plant, but I said I will believe it when I see it. There's a lot of issues, including water, and selecting Jamestown over somewhere closer to the Missouri / Mandan surprised me. It still baffles me and makes me wonder about the likelihood of this fertilizer plant in Jamestown becoming a reality.

But, the fact that a Menard's is opening in Jamestown at the same time it is opening a store in Williston speaks volumes. Is Menard's in Jamestown a confirmation that movers and shakers think the fertilizer plant is a "go"?

Disclaimer; Tesla; Fertilizer Plants In North Dakota -- January 14, 2015

This is interesting. Some North Dakota lawmakers proposing tax incentives for additional fertilizer plants in the state to make use of all that natural gas that's being produced. The bill would also affect the recently announced Badlands NGL facility, which will turn ethane gas into polyethylene for plastic products.

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A lot has been posted today, much of it in haste. I assume there are typographical and factual errors. I will gradually get back to the posts to correct errors if I find them. If you see any significant errors, let me know.

This is not an investment site. Do not make any investment, financial, or relationship decisions based on what you read at this blog. If you see something that appears to be wrong, it probably is. This blog is full of opinion, and it is hard to separate fact from opinion on a blog like this. If it's important to you, go to the source. As for me, I'm going to lunch.

Tesla. Story here. And what I think Tesla is all about. And it's not cars. 

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Tesla

It's a battery company disguised as an automobile company:

Musk wants to change the economics of batteries by mass-producing them in the “gigafactory” Tesla is building in Nevada, which is due to open in 2020 and reach production of 500,000 battery packs per year at some point. Musk has said those packs will go into future Tesla vehicles, including mass-market models costing less than $40,000. But he may also need other automotive customers for those packs, which won’t happen unless Tesla’s competitors are building electrics. That helps explain why Tesla released many of its patents last year and called for open-source development of EV technology – with other automakers using Tesla’s technology, instead of the other way around, of course.

One big problem for electrics is that battery technology — unlike semiconductors, which have seen enormous gains in processing power and a corresponding plunge in costs — is evolving slowly, with no huge breakthroughs on the horizon. Putting enough juice in a battery to power a car remains so expensive that the segment still depends on a $7,500 federal tax credit per vehicle. Even then, it’s difficult for automakers to turn a profit on electrics. Most technology becomes more cost-efficient as production ramps up, but it’s still not clear if batteries will ever become cost-competitive with other forms of fuel, absent subsidies.-- from the linked article.

Building out the national, much less a global, charging system will be economically impossible for the private sector; competing standards will make things worse:

Tesla faces as a small-batch manufacturer: different standards for fast-charge stations springing up across the country. Tesla uses a proprietary system the way Apple’s iPhones can only be powered with Apple chargers. 

That’s not a problem for charging the car at home, but when traveling, Tesla owners can only get a quick charge at a Tesla charger, and there simply aren’t enough of them to allow worry-free driving in every market. 

Building a full national network on Tesla's own dime coudl be prohibitively expensive. Teslanauts can charge more slowly through a standard outlet, but such trickle-charging takes hours. That limits the appeal of any Tesla regardless of the price, especially for families that only want to own one car.

Nissan uses a different fast-charge standard for the Leaf, which is catching on in many cities that are building public charging networks. BMW and other German manufacturers rely on a third standard. The Leaf already outsells the Model S nearly 2-to-1, and if a competing charging technology becomes the dominant standard, Tesla risks becoming Betamax in a VHS world. Some critics say Musk missed an opportunity by not making Tesla’s technology available sooner, before other standards were in place.-- from the linked article.

Already in trouble:

Musk declined to report December sales numbers, as he did last year around this time, generating speculation that the numbers must be weak. He also said Tesla won’t be fully profitable until 2020, several years later than some analysts had been expecting. The company’s stock fell by more than 6% following Musk’s remarks. -- from the linked article.

Cheap gasoline, natural gas at just the wrong time:

One of the huge breaks the Bakken got was high-priced oil during the Bakken's discovery and early development stage. The slump in the price of oil occurred when the Bakken had entered the manufacturing phase and production costs for Bakken crude had decreased significantly. With the infrastructure in place, the Bakken can better manage the slump in oil prices. 

It is quite the opposite for Tesla. Tesla is still in its infancy, in its "discovery" phase, and hardly even into a "development stage." As long as the price of oil was projected to increase over the next 20 years, Tesla EVs looked comparatively attractive. However, a spokesman from someone who should know, a Saudi prince, says we will never see $100-oil again. That's a real downer for someone selling EVs.

Petro-Chemical, Fertilizer, Refinery Industries

For archival purposes.

It will be interesting to follow the petro-chemical, fertilizer, refinery industry with the current slump in oil prices and a suggestion that based on supply and demand (not geo-political realities), the slump in oil prices could last a long, long time.

Note, I have tags for "fertilizer" and "refinery" at the bottom of the blog. I will add "Petro_Chemical."

For the archives.

Note how this story dovetails with the proposed Grand Forks fertilizer facility (Don caught this); original estimates of $1.7 billion were recently raised to $1.85 billion. Also note the cost overrun in a fertilizer factory under construction in Iowa.

Bloomberg is reporting on $100/hour welders and the construction of petro-chemical facilities:

A growing surplus of cheap natural gas from shale drilling is driving a boom in the U.S. chemical industry, which uses the fuel as a raw material for plastics, fertilizer and paints.

Plans by chemical companies to build or expand 215 plants worth $133 billion in the U.S., however, are overwhelming the construction work force in the primarily rural areas where they would be located, boosting costs and causing delays.

“We’re all competing for the same limited workforce,” Floren said in an interview. “The only way to address that is train people, which takes time, or bring in foreign workers, which is not allowed.”

Other chemical companies are facing the same issues, Nassef Sawiris, the CEO of OCI NV, said in a joint interview at Bloomberg’s New York headquarters with Floren and Charlie Yao, chief of the Chinese methanol producer Yuhuang Chemical Inc.

“It’s a shocker,” Sawiris said.

OCI, based in Geleen, Netherlands, is already over budget because of labor costs at a nitrogen fertilizer plant under construction in Iowa, according to Sawiris, and he’s having difficulty finding trained construction workers at a methanol facility in Texas that’s expected to open in 2016.

I keep coming back to two things with regard to all this:

• the US is formidable when it comes to energy -- no one else even comes close
• the US has the least expensive coal, natural gas, oil, wind, solar, hydro in the entire world -- and most of it is not subsidized by the government; subject to free-market realities; this will trickle through the entire economy

I track the "Big Stories" here. 

Proposed Grand Forks Fertilizer Plant Receives Water Authorization; Pearl Harbor Over At The Los Angeles Times -- December 7, 2014

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

The State Water Commission granted permission Friday for Grand Forks to pump additional water from its wastewater lagoons and the Red River to meet the needs of a proposed fertilizer plant and other industrial users.

Northern Plains Nitrogen is proposing a $1.85 billion, 340-acre fertilizer plant on the north edge of Grand Forks. Construction is scheduled to start next year, with startup expected in 2018.

The plant would produce about 1.5 million tons of fertilizer products per year.

To meet the plant’s water demands, the city sought permission to pump 7,287 gallons per minute from its wastewater lagoons, or 11,755 acre-feet of water annually. Currently, the wastewater is treated and released back into the Red River.

I track the proposed Grand Forks fertilizer plant here.

Back-of-the-envelope: the state-built Devils Lake outlet can discharge up to 100 cubic-feet of water per second. One-hundred cubic-feet was of water = 0.0023 cubic-acre of water.  At 0.0023 cubic-acre/sec, that is 8.3 acre-feet per hour, or about 72,000 acre-feet per year. Yeah, it looks like there should be more than enough water most years. [I often make simple arithmetic errors; if this information is important to you, go to the source and confirm the calculations.]

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73 Years Ago -- The Day That Continues To Live In Infamy

Even if you don't have a subscription you might be able to catch some of the photographs and some of the stories remembering Pearl Harbor. At the link, scroll down until you get to the photos. This is a dynamic link and the stories will be gone by tomorrow, I suppose.

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A Note to the Granddaughters

My dad -- your great-grandfather -- was discharged from the US Navy following the end of WWII in the Pacific; he was discharged at Wilmington, CA -- near the Ports of Los Angeles/Long Beach.

He hitchhiked home to Newell, South Dakota, following his discharge. Prior to beginning his trip home, he visited San Francisco to see a cousin.

Your great-grandfather spent about 2/3rds of his WWII time in the Atlantic, and about 1/3rd of his time in the Pacific. He served on the USS Wakefield.

Reposting -- This Really Is Huge, September 5, 2014; "Pauses Of 15 Years Zero Out Any So-Called Trends" -- NOAA

Updates

March 2, 2015: decision on where plastics plant to be located will be delayed. 

February 15, 2015: it is now being reported that the fertilizer plant to be built in Jamestown needs more water than Jamestown area can provide. Options are limited:

CHS tried to get permits to use water from aquifers around Jamestown. The State Water Commission, which evaluates the availability of water and issues permits, said many of the water rights for the area already had been allocated. 

Something seems a bit fishy; shouldn't this have been worked out by now?

Original Post

Just last week I made the comment:

If a new project in the Bakken is not followed by "-est" -- the biggest, the largest, -- it hardly makes news.

Then, this morning, Kent wrote:

"$3 billion here, $3 billion there." 

Remember, a single Bakken well costs upwards of $10 million. A 14-well pad, $150 million.
Two hundred wells/month in the Bakken. $2 billion/month just for the wells.

But this is what caught my eye and the eyes of others, today. It was a big enough story to make Yahoo!In-Play:

CHS Inc. to build fertilizer plant at Spiritwood, N.D.; plant to cost ~$3 bln and employ ~160-180 people: Co announced it will proceed with construction of a fertilizer manufacturing plant at Spiritwood, N.D.

• The CHS Board of Directors approved final plans for the ~$3 bln project at its September meeting. Groundbreaking will take place following completion of additional details, with the plant intended to be fully operational in the first half of calendar 2018. When complete, the plant will employ 160-180 people.
• The CHS fertilizer plant will produce more than 2,400 tons of ammonia daily which will be further converted to urea, UAN and Diesel Exhaust Fuel.

2018. I will be only three or four years older. Awesome.

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Whatever Happened To Global Warming?

An op-ed in the WSJ:

On Sept. 23 the United Nations will host a party for world leaders in New York to pledge urgent action against climate change. Yet leaders from China, India and Germany have already announced that they won't attend the summit and others are likely to follow, leaving President Obama looking a bit lonely.

Could it be that they no longer regard it as an urgent threat that some time later in this century the air may get a bit warmer?

In effect, this is all that's left of the global-warming emergency the U.N. declared in its first report on the subject in 1990.

The U.N. no longer claims that there will be dangerous or rapid climate change in the next two decades.

Last September, between the second and final draft of its fifth assessment report, the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change quietly downgraded the warming it expected in the 30 years following 1995, to about 0.5 degrees Celsius from 0.7 (or, in Fahrenheit, to about 0.9 degrees, from 1.3).

Even that is likely to be too high.

The climate-research establishment has finally admitted openly what skeptic scientists have been saying for nearly a decade: Global warming has stopped since shortly before this century began. 

Baraq O'Bama is going to be a bit lonely -- but mainstream media is going to use a lot of ink on this conference.

Might as well add this:

Two years before Mr. Whitehouse's article, climate scientists were already admitting in emails among themselves that there had been no warming since the late 1990s.

"The scientific community would come down on me in no uncertain terms if I said the world had cooled from 1998," wrote Phil Jones of the University of East Anglia in Britain in 2005.

He went on: "Okay it has but it is only seven years of data and it isn't statistically significant."

If the pause lasted 15 years, they conceded, then it would be so significant that it would invalidate the climate-change models upon which policy was being built.

A report from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) written in 2008 made this clear: "The simulations rule out (at the 95% level) zero trends for intervals of 15 yr or more." [Read that again.]

Well, the pause has now lasted for 16, 19 or 26 years—depending on whether you choose the surface temperature record or one of two satellite records of the lower atmosphere. That's according to a new statistical calculation by Ross McKitrick, a professor of economics at the University of Guelph in Canada. 

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[The University of Guelph is consistently ranked as a top comprehensive university in Canada by Maclean's magazine, and given top marks for student satisfaction among medium-sized universities in Canada by The Globe and Mail. It has held these rankings with its reputation, innovative research-intensive programs, and lively campus life cited as particular strengths. The University of Guelph has also been ranked 50 among the top 100 universities under 50 years old by Times Higher Educaton. The university has a key focus on life science and has ranked 76-100 in the world by ARWU.]

CHS Will Build Fertilizer Plant In Spiritwood, ND -- Near Jamestown, ND -- September 5, 2014

Press release:

CHS Inc., the nation's leading farmer-owned cooperative and a global agriculture and energy business, announced today it will proceed with construction of a fertilizer manufacturing plant at Spiritwood, N.D.

Update On Wind Ridge Pipeline, One Of The Largest Gas Pipelines To Be Built In North Dakota In Ten Years -- August 29, 2014

Updates

April 11, 2016: update on this pipeline -- the application for this project has been withdrawn. 

The application for regulatory approval by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission for the planned Wind Ridge Pipeline to carry natural gas to near Spiritwood has been withdrawn, according to Tim Rasmussen, public relations manager for WBI Energy Transmission, owner of the project.

The planned 96-mile pipeline would have connected to the Northern Border Pipeline near Zeeland, N.D., and angled to the northeast to near Spiritwood where it was intended to provide natural gas to the planned CHS fertilizer plant. 

Original Post

 

The problem with blogging on the Bakken, or following the Bakken, or driving around the Bakken, everything becomes a blur. So much is happening, that unless "-est" is in the headline, the story may not catch one's attention.

Wind Ridge Pipeline is just one of a thousand examples. I assume I've come across Wind Ridge Pipeline before, but never paid any attention to it until Steven sent me the link to the story, and I happened to see a word in the lede with "-est" in it.

The Jamestown Sun is reporting:

One of the largest natural gas pipelines in North Dakota in the last decade is in the planning and permitting process, according to Tim Rasmussen, spokesman for WBI Energy, a division of MDU Resources Group.

Rasmussen said Wind Ridge Pipeline LLC will cost an estimated $120 million and will serve the proposed CHS nitrogen fertilizer plant at Spiritwood.

“Construction of the pipeline is contingent on CHS moving forward,” he said. “In order to meet their timelines we had to start the pre-filing process now.”

The pipeline will transfer natural gas from the Northern Border Pipeline near Zeeland, ND, to the CHS plant at Spiritwood for conversion into nitrogen fertilizer. The 95-mile pipeline project will cross Mcintosh, Logan, LaMoure and Stutsman counties with 16-inch pipe.

I have blogged at least twice on the Spiritwood fertilizer plant, but had missed or did not know about the "largest" pipeline that would be built to bring natural gas to the plant.

Other posts regarding the CHS plant:

• propane off-loading facility coming along
• Yahoo!In-Play
• RBN Energy
• EPA okays CHS
• largest-ever fertilizer plant has final approval

As Joe Biden would say, this is "a really big freakin' deal."

By the way, going back to all those links brings us back to all those propane-shortage stories. Somehow we weathered that, also.

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Meanwhile, Back At Refinery....

The Dakota Prairie Refinery southwest of Dickinson is about 80 percent complete ...

The Dickinson Press is reporting:

With an estimated 20 percent of work still to finish — “the hardest,” said project manager Jeff Rust — the $350 million refinery is on schedule to begin processing roughly 20,000 barrels of crude oil per day later this year. It will produce about 300 barrels of natural gas and 7,000 to 8,000 barrels of diesel per day, much of which will be sent to local wholesalers and sold in the community.

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Twelve (12) new permits --

• Operators: Slawson (7), CLR (4). Hunt
• Fields: Big Bend (Mountrail), Dollar Joe  (Williams), Parshall (Mountrail)
  Comments:

Seven (7) producing wells completed:

• 23256, 642, SM Energy, Arnold 16X-12H, Siverston, t4/14; cum 28K 6/14;
• 23257, 776, SM Energy, Dorothy 16-12H, Siverston, t4/14; cum 55K 6/14;
• 24476, 1,890, Statoil, M. Olson 20-29 6H, Painted Woods, t7/14; cum --
• 26212, 1,967, EOG, Wayzetta 40-1424H, Parshall, 1920-acre although it's technically a long horizontal, in fact it really only drains one section (section 23), t3/14; cum 124K 6/14;
• 26346, 2,384, Statoil, Cvancara 20-17 7H, Alger, t7/14; cum --
• 26750, 615, SM Energy, Rick 16X-12H, Siverston, t4/14;
• 27080, 1,070, Arsenal, Allison Ann 10-3H,

The New Buzz? Fertilizer Plants In North Dakota -- Random Update On New Fertilizer Plant In Grand Forks Area

Water authorizations obtained, December 7, 2014: project is now estimated at $1.85 billion.

The Twin Cities is reporting, June 28, 2014:

Backers of a proposed $1.7 billion nitrogen fertilizer plant in Grand Forks, N.D., have reached a fundraising goal. Northern Plains Nitrogen has topped its seed capital target of $3 million, says Darin Anderson, a Valley City, ND, farmer and Northern Plains Nitrogen's president and managing partner.

The seed capital raised will be spent on a pre-FEED (front-end engineering and design) study, the results of which will be shown to potential investors, he says.

The Grand Forks Herald is reporting, June 2, 2014:

A new study says North Dakota would enjoy some major advantages if it were to produce fertilizer, which could happen as early as 2017 at a proposed plant near Grand Forks.

An earlier Prairie Business story, August 28, 2013:

A group planning a nitrogen fertilizer plant near Grand Forks said Tuesday they are in the process of purchasing a site and are meeting other goals for the $1.5 billion project.

In May, the group announced its plans for a fertilizer plant to produce a variety of nitrogen fertilizer products, with a planned construction start in 2015.

New Nitrogen-Based Fertilizer Plant To Be Built In North Dakota

Updates

April 2, 2014: plant put on hold; costs come in way above estimates. 
 

Original Post

Link here.

A joint venture between Northern Plains Nitrogen and Cheng Da, a Chinese engineering company.

The plant will be the first of its kind in North Dakota. It will use natural gas from the Bakken as feedstock. The plant, to be built near Grand Forks, is expected to be operational by 2017.

From wiki: Nitrogen fertilizers are often made using the Haber-Bosch process (invented about 1915) which uses natural gas (CH4) for the hydrogen and nitrogen gas (N2) from the air at an elevated temperature and pressure in the presence of a catalyst to form ammonia (NH3) as the end product.

Yahoo! In-Play: More Fertilizer Plants In North Dakota?

CHS Inc. and Dakota Plains Cooperative announce the two cooperatives have been in discussions about entering into a merger transaction: Co and Dakota Plains Cooperative, a full-service agribusiness headquartered in Valley City, N.D., announced the two cooperatives have been in discussions about entering into a merger transaction and now seek approval from the members of Dakota Plains Cooperative and the CHS Board of Directors. Integral to this effort is close examination of opportunities to enhance agronomy assets in the east central area of North Dakota. Plans under discussion include constructing three new fertilizer plants within the Dakota Plains trade area to take full advantage of the proposed fertilizer manufacturing facility in Spiritwood, N.D., currently under review by CHS.

If You Were In The Fertilizer Business, Where Would You Build Your Fertilizer Plant?

Regular readers know I am very, very excited about the potential for the fertilizer industry in North Dakota. Keep that in mind while reading the linked article.

SeekingAlpha is reporting:

Denny Wright: If you were the CEO of a plastics or fertilizer business, where would you base your company?

Bill Powers: It depends on where you were selling your fertilizer. There is a very large Egyptian company along the Mississippi River in Iowa that actually owns IFC (Iowa Fertilizer Company) and, they have spent over a billion of dollars building the first world scale fertilizer plant in the United States in 25 years. Canada is also an attractive place given the amount of natural gas and the extensive pipeline system. In the United States one risk you would run as an industrial user are supply interruptions once natural gas prices really rise. In Canada, I think you are less likely to have that happen.

That's part of an article that you might find interesting. I disagree with much of the premise of the author, but he's an expert and I'm not. 

Natural Gas And Fertilizer

Nice article on fertilizer interest in the US. For archival purposes.

From wiki:

Potassium is the third major plant and crop nutrient after nitrogen and phosphorus. It has been used since antiquity as a soil fertilizer (about 90% of current use). Elemental potassium does not occur in nature because it reacts violently with water. As various compounds, potassium makes up about 2.6% of the weight of the Earth's crust and is the seventh most abundant element, similar in abundance to sodium at approximately 1.8% of the crust.  Potash is important for agriculture because it improves water retention, yield, nutrient value, taste, colour, texture and disease resistance of food crops. It has wide application to fruit and vegetables, rice, wheat and other grains, sugar, corn, soybeans, palm oil and cotton, all of which benefit from the nutrient’s quality enhancing properties.

The fertilizer plants in Jamestown and Grand Forks are for fixing nitrogen using natural gas as the source of hydrogen for making ammonia. 

I have not heard anything about potash (potassium) mining in North Dakota for a long time. Back in 2011-2012, it was said that potash mining in North Dakota would take another 3 to 5 years. With nothing said since then, one wonders.

Ammonia, Natural Gas, Fertilizer, and The Bakken

RBN Energy: another outstanding article.

The N-Flex “mobile” ammonia plant idea is more interesting if the technology can be scaled to take advantage of natural gas that is otherwise going to waste in North Dakota. The economics of small-scale production may be quite different and the resulting output will require transportation to reach the farm market. The hefty margins for large-scale production will probably be reduced considerably by these inefficiencies. However, if the capital costs of production on this small scale are more palatable than for a large plant, the idea could create a niche market. The success of the idea probably still depends on ammonia prices being driven by high crop prices rather than following the price of natural gas. Large-scale producers are unlikely to stand idly by and watch their market share disappear either. 

It doesn't take a rocket scientist or a Harvard MBA to see the opportunity for North Dakota entrepreneurs.