The North Dakota Industrial Commission on Jan. 24 awarded $125 million in forgivable loans for new fertilizer production projects (GM Jan. 19, p. 1), with $75 million going to Prairie Horizon Energy Solution LLC and $50 million to NextEra Energy Resources Development LLC.
The Commission has three members – Governor Doug Burgum, Attorney General Drew Wrigley, and Agriculture Commissioner Doug Goehring.
The N.D. Clean Sustainable Energy Authority (CSEA) on Jan. 23 recommended that the Commission split the award. The fertilizer must be made from hydrogen produced by electrolysis of water. CSEA’s Technical Committee gave Prairie Horizon a rating of 41.75 out of 50, with NextEra’s receiving 39.13. Both projects were called “feasible with conditions.”
Prairie Horizon’s $2.2 billion project would be in Dickenson and produce 419,750 tons of ammonia per year. Some 73,000 tons of ammonia production would come via electrolysis and be green. The project would also use natural gas, with that ammonia being blue. Capturing and storing carbon dioxide is also part of the plans.
Prairie Horizon is a collaboration between Marathon Petroleum Corp. (MPC) and TC Energy, both of which are a part of the Heartland Hydrogen Hub (HH2H), which was selected by the US Department of Energy for up to $925 million to produce low carbon hydrogen, decarbonize regional supply chains, and create clean energy jobs across Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Wisconsin (GM Oct. 13, 2023).
NextEra’s $1.293 million facility would be in the Spiritwood Energy Park near Jamestown, producing 100,000 tons per year of green ammonia. Power would come from wind generation. NextEra is already heavily involved in the state, having invested $3.7 billion in North Dakota wind projects with another in the planning stages.
NextEra has been eyeing a possible fertilizer plant in the state for some time (GM June 2, 2023). It has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with CF Industries Holdings Inc. for a joint venture to develop a zero-carbon-intensity hydrogen project at CF’s Verdigris Complex in Oklahoma (GM April 28, 2023), and it is also invested in clean technology developer and junior ammonia producer Monolith, Lincoln, Neb., which has plans to produce 275,000 mt/y of ammonia in Nebraska (GM July 15, 2022).
Both Prairie Horizon and NextEra’s projects would be built with an eye toward eventually constructing a “bolt-on” urea plant.
The companies have a month to decide on whether they will take the loan, according to the Bismarck Tribune. If one declines, the entire amount will be offered to the other company. The loan will become forgivable, or a “grant” once the project is commercially viable, with that definition still to be finalized.
There was no new information as to CSEA’s review of Catalyst Midstream (USA) LLC’s request for $10 million in funding to build a $960 million, 1 million ton per year blue ammonia project in Berthold (GM Jan. 19, p. 1).
North Dakota already has one nitrogen plant. Dakota Gas Co., a subsidiary of Basin Electric Power Cooperative, Bismarck, produces 1,100 st/d of urea at its Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah (GM May 25, 2018). It also has ammonia capacity of 110,000 st/y and ammonium sulfate at 400,000 st/y. Diesel exhaust fluid (DEF) is produced there as well.