Dakota Gasification Company, Bismarck, N.D., reported on Oct. 8 that it has submitted an application to the North Dakota Department of Health for an environmental permit for a proposed urea production plant at its Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah, N.D.
Dakota Gas is in the final stages of a Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study for the facility, and described the application submittal as a “key preliminary step” in its ongoing investigation of the project. Based on a successful FEED study and final board approval, the urea plant would be scheduled for completion in early 2017 with a production capacity of 1,100 st per day.
“We’re excited about the potential to build on the fertilizer products we already produce, bringing more benefit to this nation’s agricultural customers,” said Andrew M. Serri, Dakota Gas president and CEO. “We’ve been evaluating a number of products and processes designed to bring value to rural America.”
The Synfuels Plant, which produces about 153 million cubic feet/day of pipeline-quality natural gas from a coal gasification process, already produces anhydrous ammonia and ammonium sulfate (Dak Sul 45) as co-products. Urea would mark the 10th co-product produced at the facility.
Serri noted that urea production requires anhydrous ammonia and carbon dioxide, both of which are manufactured in the plant’s process. He said urea has the highest nitrogen content of all solid nitrogen fertilizers, but costs less to handle, store, and transport that other nitrogen-based fertilizer.
Dakota Gas first announced that it was investigating urea production at the Synfuels Plant in late 2011 (GM Dec. 9, 2011), when it initiated a pre-FEED study for the project. The company moved to the FEED study phase in October 2012 (GM Oct. 15, 2012), reporting at that time that it anticipated the construction of the facility to be completed by late 2015 or early 2016 pending successful FEED study results.
“It’s important to note that a final decision has not yet been made to move forward with the urea project,” Serri cautioned on Oct. 8, referring to the submittal of the application for the environmental permit as “another step in the evaluation of the project.”
Dakota Gas is a subsidiary of Bismarck-based Basin Electric Power Cooperative, a consumer-owned, regional cooperative that generates and transmits electricity to 137 member rural electric systems and approximately 2.8 million consumers in Colorado, Iowa, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, New Mexico, the Dakotas, and Wyoming. A majority of the natural gas produced at the company’s Synfuels Plant, which has been in operation since 1984, is piped to Ventura, Iowa, for distribution in the eastern U.S.