Dakota Gasification Co. (DGC) confirmed in early January that its new urea plant at Beulah, N.D., is mechanically complete and currently in start-up mode. Once operational, the facility will be able to produce 1,100 st/d of urea at full capacity, with the ability to shift urea production to diesel emission fluid (DEF).
The Beulah facility’s 150,000-square-foot urea storage building was completed in November, and DGC began offering spring urea pricing in late December on a location-by-location basis within a 250- to 300-mile radius of the plant, within its trade territory of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Montana. The 700 feet by 210 feet urea storage building has capacity for 53,000 st, which the company plans to fill in time for the region’s spring planting season.
DGC reported in late November that construction was nearly 99 percent complete and the commissioning of equipment was in full force at the urea plant. The urea control room and power supply were commercialized in October, and several contractors were already offsite or in the process of demobilizing to exit the job site by mid-December. Most of the process systems had been turned over from construction to commissioning staff by late November.
The project employed more than 1,000 at the peak of construction, with just over 200 contractors remaining onsite in mid-December to complete finishing work. The urea plant will reportedly add 40 new permanent positions to the Great Plains Synfuels Plant’s workforce of 740 employees, the Bismarck Tribune reported.
DGC currently produces two other fertilizers – anhydrous ammonia and ammonium sulfate (Dak Sul 45®) – at the $2.1 billion Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah. The facility’s maximum annual production capacity for ammonia and ammonium sulfate is approximately 400,000 st and 110,000 st, respectively.
Once the urea plant is operational and producing at capacity in the coming months, DGC said approximately 56-57 percent of Beulah’s ammonia capacity will be directed to urea production. The company projects as well that about 51 percent of the gross revenues generated by the Great Plains Synfuels Plant, which was built in the 1980s to produce synthetic natural gas from lignite coal, will now come from fertilizer sales. The plant produces a total of 13 co-products, and is home to the world’s largest carbon dioxide capture project.
The urea production facility’s overall cost was projected at $402 million in early 2014, when DGC announced plans to proceed with the plant (GM Feb. 2, 2014). The company has since pegged the total cost at an estimated $500 million. In addition to the urea storage, granulation, and melt operations at the site, DGC also constructed a new load-out facility for trucks and railcars with the capacity to load up to 110 railcars in a single shipment. The site also includes a 1.1-million-gallon stainless steel tank to store DEF.
DGC had earlier predicted that the urea plant would be operational by late second-quarter 2017, but the company revised those estimates to early 2018 after a powerful storm in July 2016 damaged the urea storage building (GM July 15, 2016), requiring it to be torn down and rebuilt from scratch
DGC reported that it was hosting multiple sessions for truckers and retail customers to visit the urea plant on Jan. 4 and again on Jan. 10 so they can become familiar with the roads and load-out procedures at the facility. The company will hold an official grand opening for the plant in March.