Newsmaker of the year: The Gorilla
After months of secrecy, Hyperion revealed refinery plans
By Dave Dreeszen, Business Editor | Posted: Monday, December 31, 2007
ELK POINT, S.D. -- The seemingly endless speculation abounded for months.
Who was behind the optioning of thousands of acres of farmland in southern Union County? What did they want to build there? A Toyota factory? A nuclear power plant? An experimental project that nobody had ever heard of before?
Only a handful of local and state leaders knew the identity of the people and company behind the super-secret project, code named "Gorilla,'' both for its massive size and scope and for a handful of yard-art statutes visible along Interstate 29 just north of Elk Point.
Speculation about the Gorilla even attracted the attention of the Wall Street Journal. On May 25, the world's leading business publication ran an extensive story -- in the middle of its front page and above the fold -- on the mysterious project in Southeast Union County. The reporter spent a week in Elk Point, talking to lots of local folks.
Finally on June 13, at a news conference in the packed community room of the Union County Courthouse, the mystery Gorilla unmasked itself. It was Hyperion Resources, a Texas-based energy firm, which stepped forward to announce it was considering a site near the tiny town of Spink for a $10 billion oil refinery. The company claimed it was also looking at "several" other sites in the Midwest, although it has declined to divulge them.
Since then, the company has filed a massive application to rezone 3,882 acres it has assembled from agriculture to a newly created planned Energy Center Planned Development District (ECPDD). That zone would allow agriculture on its perimeter, but not concentrated livestock feeding operations. The planning and zoning commission is considering the application.
The refinery would be the first built in the United States in more than three decades.
The intense speculation and the continuing public debate over whether Hyperion's project would be a boom or debacle for the community makes the Gorilla Siouxland's top newsmaker for 2007.
Who was behind the optioning of thousands of acres of farmland in southern Union County? What did they want to build there? A Toyota factory? A nuclear power plant? An experimental project that nobody had ever heard of before?
Only a handful of local and state leaders knew the identity of the people and company behind the super-secret project, code named "Gorilla,'' both for its massive size and scope and for a handful of yard-art statutes visible along Interstate 29 just north of Elk Point.
Speculation about the Gorilla even attracted the attention of the Wall Street Journal. On May 25, the world's leading business publication ran an extensive story -- in the middle of its front page and above the fold -- on the mysterious project in Southeast Union County. The reporter spent a week in Elk Point, talking to lots of local folks.
Finally on June 13, at a news conference in the packed community room of the Union County Courthouse, the mystery Gorilla unmasked itself. It was Hyperion Resources, a Texas-based energy firm, which stepped forward to announce it was considering a site near the tiny town of Spink for a $10 billion oil refinery. The company claimed it was also looking at "several" other sites in the Midwest, although it has declined to divulge them.
Since then, the company has filed a massive application to rezone 3,882 acres it has assembled from agriculture to a newly created planned Energy Center Planned Development District (ECPDD). That zone would allow agriculture on its perimeter, but not concentrated livestock feeding operations. The planning and zoning commission is considering the application.
The refinery would be the first built in the United States in more than three decades.
The intense speculation and the continuing public debate over whether Hyperion's project would be a boom or debacle for the community makes the Gorilla Siouxland's top newsmaker for 2007.
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Billboard wrote on Jan 2, 2008 9:52 AM:
in Arizona underway, it would be the
first and Hyperion is trying to get
a second one started "
You forgot to mention wrote on Dec 31, 2007 7:01 AM: