Hyperion Refining sent out a press release late Wednesday boasting it would be the first  North American oil refinery to use thermal oxidizers to burn off what it called the “small amount of vapors” coming from storage tanks of liquids such as crude oil and gasoline, rather than let them ooze into the air and contribute to its planned refinery’s emissions.

To the company’s credit, it does note that that use of the thermal oxidizers were not in its initial preconstruction air quality permit application, but were added later as a condition of receiving that key permit from the state DENR’s Board of Minerals and the Environment, something it accomplished earlier this month after a final hearing before that board in Pierre.  (more…)

YUMA, ARIZ. — Hyperion Refining watchers might be interested to know that the oil refinery/energy center the Texas company is planning for Union County may not be the first from-scratch refinery to be built in the United States in more than 30 years, as is oft recited.

Arizona Clean Fuels CEO Glenn McGinnis said Friday that his company is filling in some specifics and wrapping up negotiations with “several investors” to build a refinery near Yuma, Ariz. That project could break ground as soon as late next year, McGinnis said. (more…)

PIERRE, S.D. — The South Dakota DENR has answered two of the outstanding questions regarding the public comment meetings scheduled for April 15-16 in Elk Point by its Board of Minerals and Environment.

Sara Raeburn, spokeswoman for the South Dakota Attorney General’s office, said the board will not announce the format of its public comment sessions or whether it will limit the time alotted to each speaker until the actual event.

Raeburn also said that a transcript of the public comments will be prepared. It will become part of the hearing record and will be considered by the Board.

The answers are coming through the attorney general’s office rather than the DENR because of the contested hearing status of the legal action on Hyperion Refining’s air quality permit. All the information on the issue must come through the attorney general’s office. At least that’s the case when it’s reporters who are asking for it.

Hyperion vice president Preston Phillips, who spent time at the company’s Elk Point office last week and will be there again this week, said Hyperion has also been calling supporters, asking them to express their views at the meeting.

Read the full story here.

To hear a two-part exclusive Journal interview, use the audio players below:

 

 Pt. 1: Preston Phillips interview [9:29m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 

 Pt. 2: Preston Phillips interview [4:57m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Unless the Canadian government steps forward to provide more infrastructure assistance, an opportunity to expand Alberta’s oil sands industry and create hundreds of high-paying jobs will almost certainly be lost foreover, a report released this week said, “Future of oil sands depends on government intervention”

The Alberta Federation of Labour commissioned the report, dubbed “Lost Down the Pipeline,”  which found that despite the global recession, energy companies are proceeding with aggressive plans to dramatically expand U.S.-based refining capacity, and American-bound pipeline capacity. 

In its report, the AFL listed U.S. refiners planning to tap into Alberta’s vast oil sands reserves, including Hyperion Refining, which proposes to build a 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Union County, S.D.  The Texas-based firm is in the midst of applying for an air permit from South Dakota regulators.

“What our research shows is that American refineries will have the capacity to process all of the expected increase in oil sands output from Alberta,”  AFL president Gil McGowan said. “As a result, unless the Stelmach government steps in much more aggressively than it has, the raft of upgrader postponements we’ve seen here in Alberta will almost certainly turn into permanent cancellations. We’ll be losing literally thousands of jobs down the pipeline.”

KSFY-TV out of Sioux Falls devoted a recent story to pinning down whether South Dakota is really the site for Hyperion Refining’s proposed $10 billion, 400,000 barrel-per-day, oil refinery and energy center. There’s not much new here. The Journal has long reported the same sort of thing and nothing’s changed. Hyperion has said southern Union County in South Dakota is the place, if it can get the pre-construction air permit it needs from the state’s Department of Environment and Natural Resources. It supposedly continues to pursue other potential sites, possibly including one in northeast Kansas. That parcel is reportedly vast, but belongs to a single owner, making it much easier to keep under wraps than our local Gorilla proved to be. The company’s site search is either very stealthy or has slowed/stopped, pending the nailing down of the project’s status in South Dakota.

DES MOINES — Ed Cable, leader of Save Union County’s campaign against Hyperion Refining’s proposed oil refinery — has waived his right to a hearing and given up his architect’s license in Iowa permanently after what the state claims is a failure to comply with the rules.

Cable signed a consent order on Dec. 12 in a disciplinary case brought against him by the Architectural Examining Board of the State of Iowa. The order follows a suspension of Cable’s license. In the order, the board reprimands Cable for practicing architecture with a suspended and lapsed registration and with violating a prior order imposing discipline. (more…)

Like many people, reporters on the Hyperion beat are signed up for Google Alerts that may give us a snippet of information about the refinery project, mined from some other media source. Many of the alerts are quite dated and many come from Journal stories, sometimes days, weeks or even months later.

One today comes to mind. It’s not really news, but an elk hunting site has a link to a real estate site stating Hyperion Resources is building a refinery in Elk Point, S.D.; please “click here” to see the real estate listings there. The first click takes you to one upscale home on the market — in Vermillion, S.D.. From there you can get to another site where you type in Elk Point, S.D., also to see one listing, a nice brick ranch house near the golf course and school for $250,000.

It doesn’t exactly depict the housing rush that’s being anticipated, but then again, no refinery is under construction, either. Not yet.

Here’s the link if you’d like to explore:  http://huntinglot.com/south-dakota/elk-in-south-dakota

If you don’t find the house you’d like, at least you can download an elk bugle ring tone.

Mike Madell, the National Park Service’s new superintendent for the Missouri National Recreational River, said he’ll meet next Wednesday with representatives of Hyperion Refining to learn more about the company’s proposed oil refinery and its plans regarding the Missouri River as a source of water for it.

Madell, who has just moved the superintendent’s office from O’Neill, Neb., to Yankton, S.D., said he knows the refinery is “a big issue” in this area and wants to learn more about it.

“It’s an internal meeting primarily for my benefit,” he said. Madell said he didn’t know how involved the NPS would be in permitting for the project.

“If it’s within the lower 59 miles of the lower district of the recreational river, we’re certainly going to have a concern,” he said. “We may have some regulatory responsibilities.” According to the state map of Nebraska, it appears the portion of the river along Union County, site of the proposed refinery, does fall within that district.

Madell was most recently stationed in Arkansas. Prior to that he was assigned to river management duties on the Mississippi River. He said the Missouri and Mississippi rivers each have their own personality and use issues.

I wasn’t expecting to consider Langston Hughes or his famous poem, “Dream Deferred,”  when I went to the courthouse in Elk Point, S.D., this morning to cover a public hearing on the proposed make-over of the county’s zoning ordinance.

But that’s what happened.

(more…)