Tribe breaks ground on refinery
http://oilpatchdispatch.areavoices.com/2013/05/09/tribe-breaks-ground-on-refinery/
The tribes held a ceremonial groundbreaking for the Thunder Butte Petroleum Services Refinery, which will be constructed in four phases over two years. It will have the capacity to process up to 20,000 barrels per day of Bakken crude that is produced on the Fort Berthold Reservation.
Construction is expected to begin in August on the first phase, a truck-to-rail crude oil transloading facility that later ties into the refinery, said Rich Mayer, CEO of Thunder Butte Petroleum Services.
The transloading facility, which involves building storage tanks and a connection to a Canadian Pacific line near the property, would load and ship one 120-car train every four days, said Kurt Swenson, vice president of Corval Group, a consultant involved with engineering on the project.
The rail facility will be operational by early 2014 while the refinery is being constructed.
The tribe is finalizing a contract with a company called Chemex LLC, which will construct a modular refinery in Bakersfield, Calif., and ship it to North Dakota to be assembled.
Once the contract is finalized, construction is estimated to take 18 to 24 months, Mayer said.
Initially the refinery will produce diesel and sell the byproducts. After the final phase, the refinery will have the ability to refine more diesel and also some gasoline, Mayer said.
The refinery will provide 300 local construction jobs and 75 to 100 full-time jobs after it’s operational, officials said.
...
The refinery is off of Highway 23 on 469 acres northwest of Makoti the tribe bought from Bernice Nelson of Minot, who used to farm on the property with her husband. Makoti, which had a population of 154 in 2010, is about 35 miles east of New Town.
The tribe has contributed $40 million toward the transloading facility portion of the project.
The approximate $450 million total cost will be financed with bonds, said Daniel Eastman, managing director of private investment banking firm John W. Loofbourrow Associates Inc., who traveled from New York to attend the ceremony.
If they build this, I believe it will be the first new refinery built in the USA in over 30 years!
Now, if the Tribe could just get their firearms back from the benevolent and caring government.
Drilling and building refineries....should have been done decades ago.