Jan. 10—A large potential project for Grand Forks that seems to have been in a state of dormancy gained at least a spark of life on Monday.
Summit Carbon Solutions on Monday afternoon, Jan. 10, sent a press release saying it has formed a new partnership with Northern Plains Nitrogen, a company that has been in talks with Grand Forks developers for the better part of the last decade.
The press release speaks in positive language about Northern Plains Nitrogen's potential arrival in Grand Forks, saying "NPN is developing a world-scale blue ammonia plant near Grand Forks, North Dakota, which will supply a range of low carbon nitrogen-based fertilizer products to farmers in under-served markets in the northern United States and Canada."
Further, the press release noted that "the project site has been acquired and necessary permits have been received to begin site work."
Summit Carbon Solutions is an Iowa-based company, which is behind a more than
$4 billion Midwest Carbon Express project
. It has a goal of sending 12 millions tons of CO2 annually to western North Dakota, where it can be stored underground, Forum News Service previously reported. It would be the largest carbon capture project in the world.
However, Mayor Brandon Bochenski and City Administrator Todd Feland, in a joint interview with the Herald late Monday afternoon, said much still needs to happen before NPN's arrival in Grand Forks can be considered imminent.
"We haven't heard any updates, at least in the last six months," Bochenski said. "We think there is positive momentum with the natural gas pipeline coming. But beyond that, we have had no communication (with NPN)."
Feland said that in December, the city extended a letter of intent for potential wastewater service. And, he noted, NPN does own land in the county.
"They continue to work through their investments and there is some positivity with carbon capture," he said.
In 2013 and for two years after that, Northern Plains was a top-of-mind project for developers in Grand Forks. In 2015, a report in the Herald noted that NPN was "billed as a major creator of jobs, but project planners also say it will help bring access to a type of fertilizer that's currently expensive to ship into the market."
Early indications showed the plant to likely be a $2 billion investment.
In its press release Monday, Summit Carbon Solutions said it is developing "the largest carbon capture and storage project in the world, which will have the capacity to capture and permanently store 12 million tons of carbon dioxide every year."