DAKOTA DUNES — The Dakota Valley Business Council sent out a message Monday urging its members to voice their support for the $10 billion, 400,000-barrel-per-day when the state South Dakota Department Department of Environment and Natural Resources’ Board of Minerals and Enviornment holds public comment meetings Wednesday and Thursday in Elk Point, S.D.

The DVBC took that stand about a year ago and spoke in support of the project before the public hearings on rezoning the 3,292 acres for the project held by the county zoning board and board of county commissioners.

DVBC President Greg Miner said in a statement that the business council wants its members to voice support for the project and to ask the DENR “to objectively evalutate the Hyperion Air Quality Permit and act on it without delay.”

Following the two days of public comment in Elk Point and a tour of the proposed site about seven miles north of there, the BME will hold a trial-like contested case hearing on the air quality permit over two weeks, one each in May and June, in Pierre. There’s no telling how long the board will review the evidence and application before ruling on it.

Hyperion needs the permit before the project can proceed.

Refinery opponent Doug Maurstad said this week he’s taking a break from the fight.

“I’m burned out,” he wrote in an e-mail. “Been on this subject for over two years and I’m convinced it will never happen, and if it does, I can’t control it anyway.”

Maurstad said he regretted that his argument was reaching such a small audience, but remained philosophical. “This refinery is never going to happen,” he wrote, “and look how many lives are in turmoil because of it.”

He said the Journal should continue to ask where the oil is coming from – he doesn’t think the Alberta tar sands are a viable source; how refinery products will leave the refinery, and the literal money question – where is the $10 billion coming from.

For now,  Hyperion is sticking with the tar sands and has said it will both pipe and truck out finished products. As for financing, if any is in place the company is not revealing its source. The fact is, that none of those answers will matter if the company can’t get the pre-construction air quality permit it needs to move ahead on the project. It doesn’t make sense to pour more money into pipeline development or rights of way or preconstruction activity until that permit is locked in.

So, is Maurstad mistaking this lull — at least in what the public sees – as the project’s demise? Or is it the calm before the flurry of preparations to build?

Air quality is a topic of interest in South Dakota, Iowa and Nebraska. Here is a link from the Environmental Protection Agency that gives daily air quality forecasts.  Click on the photo below to see the air quality status in your area.

YUMA, Ariz. — Arizona Clean Fuels appears to be on track to be the first company to build an oil refinery from scratch in 32 years. If it is successful, Hyperion Refining, the Texas company proposing to build a $10 billion, 400,000 barrel-per-day oil refinery in southern Union County, S. D., would have to let go of its own aspiration to be the first.

“We’re very close to finishing our financing,” Clean Fuels Vice president David Treanor, told me recently. “We hope to wrap things up in the next month then move forward with construction in the second quarter of `09.”

The project got started in 1999, so that would make it a 10-year journey from start to shovel in the the ground. Hyperion’s work, at least what the public is aware of, looking back, started sometime in 2006. (more…)

Environmentalists are cheering this week’s selection of Rep. Henry Waxman to chair the the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The California Democratic wrestled the post from its longtime Democratic leader, John Dingell, a long-time champion of auto makers in his home state of Michigan. Dingell also was regarded as closer to utilities, oil and gas producers.

Waxman, an ardent climate change campaigner, along with President-elect Barack Obama and other Democrats who control Congress by big margains could advance new environmental policies that would slow or even derail the proposed Hyperion Energy Center.

The proposed Union County refinery would process 400,000 barrels of crude per day from the rich oil sands fields of Alberta, Canada. As the Calgary Herald reported this week, “Oil sands foe wins U.S. energy chair,” Waxman has battled against expansion of oil sands development, “which has received bad publicity south of the border due to the energy-intensiveness of production and increasing greenhouse gas emissions.” (more…)

Some folks up in Union County are buzzing about an unsubstantiated report that the Texas-based company behind the Hyperion Energy Center is seeking bankruptcy protection. As far as I can tell, it looks like the rumor is bogus.

One caller said he read about the bankruptcy filing in an online story in a Philadelphia newspaper, but couldn’t provide a link. This morning, I searched the Philadelphia Inquirer archives for “Hyperion” and bankruptcy,” and the only recent result that popped up was this item, PhillyDeals: Mortgage-to-bond pioneer takes a hit, too .

The story, which focuses on the recent failure of a bank in Houston, makes brief reference to a Long Island private equity firm, Hyperion Partners LP. That company appears to have no connection to Texas-based Hyperion Energy Center, which is planning to build the $10 billion oil refinery and power plant in rural Union County, just north of Elk Point.

Outspoken Hyperion opponent Doug Maurstad of Alcester, S.D.  raised a common concern about Hyperion Refining in a conversation with this reporter this morning. It’s one that opponent Burdette Hanson brought up Thursday night in his remarks at the meeting of the Clay Rural Water System Board. Money.

(more…)

Uncertainity over the global financial markets and goverment efforts to curb carbon emissions have developers thinking twice about an oil sands project in Alberta, Canada, “Nexen, Opti delay decision on next oil sands phase.”

The 400,000-barrel-per-day refinery Hyperion Refining hopes to build in rural Union County, S.D., would bring in crude via pipeline from Alberta’s vast oil sands fields.

Texas-based Hyperion, which is in the process of securing an air quality permit from the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, has not secured a source for the Alberta crude it intends to refine.

The $10 billion Hyperion Energy Center has competition in its bid to become the first all-new U.S. oil refinery in more than 30 years.

A 150,000-barrel-per-day refinery planned for near Yuma (Ariz.) gained a key victory this week, as the Yuma Sun reports, ”Refinery moves closer to reality.”

As we have reported previously, the Arizona Clean Fuels project has been beset by a series of problems since it was first proposed in the late 1980s. Plans now call for construction on the $3 billion refinery to begin in 2009, with the refinery up and running by 2012.

That schedule would be about a year or so ahead of the proposed 400,000-barrel-per-day Hyperion refinery, which would be built on a rural Union County site just north of Elk Point. C

Texas-based Hyperion is currently in the process of applying for its air quality permit from the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

If you’re interested in reading more about the Alberta oil sands and what it means for Montana’s economy you might enjoy our sister paper’s coverage.

Check out the Billings Gazette articles here:
Montana businesses will feel economic impact from Alberta oil-sands industry

More Hyperion coverage from the Sioux City Journal is coming soon.