Dustin Monke

Gatekeepers of the refinery: Lab chemists play large role in Dakota Prairie Refining

Holly Dalen, laboratory supervisor at Dakota Prairie Refining, shows how to use a flash point analyzer on Thursday inside the lab on the refinery’s site west of Dickinson.

In a windowless room inside of a non-descript steel building at Dakota Prairie Refining’s sprawling facility west of Dickinson, there are six people whose job is to make certain America’s first greenfield refinery built since 1976 turns Bakken crude oil into diesel fuel.

“It’s a chem nerd’s dream,” laboratory technician and chemist Nicole Haller said of the lab where she works on the 375-acre refinery site.

The small lab crew — led by supervisor Holly Dalen of Dickinson — has some of the most important jobs at the refinery, which is in the final stages of testing before ramping up operations.

They already spend each day testing crude oil, diesel fuel and its sulphur levels, as well as other products to be produced by the refinery. They also run constant tests on city wastewater to be used in the refining process.

The lab crew act as the refinery’s gatekeepers. If a product goes in or comes out of the refinery, the lab has its eyes and instruments on it.

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B&A Global Energy sets sights on ending flaring in Bakken

Photo by Jonathan Pezza / Special to The Press Jack Kelley, president and CEO of B&A Global Energy of Tulsa, Okla., left, speaks with Michael Wu, inventor of the Energy Capturing Operating System (ECOS) at a well site in Mongolia in this undated photo provided by the company. — Photo by Jonathan Pezza / Special to The Press
Jack Kelley, president and CEO of B&A Global Energy of Tulsa, Okla., left, speaks with Michael Wu, inventor of the Energy Capturing Operating System (ECOS) at a well site in Mongolia in this undated photo provided by the company.

Jack Kelley and Skip Bennett are an unassuming duo with a big idea.

The entrepreneurs, together with a Taiwanese inventor and engineer, have a plan to capture natural gas, eliminate flaring at the wellhead, create a viable commodity from that gas, and pay both energy companies and royalty owners for their share.

B&A Global Energy, a small company based in Tulsa, Okla., has acquired the rights to the Energy Capturing Operating System (ECOS), a portable refinery able to be placed at a well site. The ECOS captures and processes methane gas produced in the hydraulic fracturing process into liquefied natural gas (LNG).

“This is a game-changing technology to the oil and gas business,” said Kelley, B&A Global’s president and CEO and a 25-year veteran of the energy industry who is also a retired U.S. Air Force pilot and a licensed architect.

B&A Global wants to bring its ECOS technology to the U.S. — specifically to North Dakota’s Bakken and Texas’ Eagle Ford shale formations — after witnessing the technology work in Asia.

“We have chosen the Bakken as our focus,” said Bennett, B&A Global’s board chairman and founder.

The idea, they say, is simple.

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What do I want my 30s to be about?

Something dawned on me the other day. Tomorrow, I’ll no longer be 30. I’ll actually be in my 30s.

I’ve reached that stage in life where everything begins to slow down while simultaneously becoming more complicated.

Spending the past year as a 30-year-old, I never truly felt like I was “in my 30s “ As my 31st birthday arrives Monday, that feeling is beginning to change.

At 30, I got married, lost an old friend far too early and said goodbye to my second grandparent in as many years.

That, along with the speculation of what is to come in life, has led me to spend more time thinking about the impact I’m making as I start my own family, play a visible role in our community and try to leave a lasting impact on our world — even if that “world” is limited to southwest North Dakota.

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Thrifty White Pharmacy leaving mall in March

0215 Business Notebook 1 web — The new Thrifty White Pharmacy building is shown on the Third Avenue West frontage road Friday in north Dickinson.

A longtime tenant of the Prairie Hills Mall is leaving for its own space.

Dave Reuter, vice president of personnel for Thrifty White Pharmacy, said the Dickinson business is relocating to its own building nearing completion on the Third Avenue West frontage road between Brady Martz and Eyewear Concepts and behind the North Hills Shopping Center.

The new pharmacy plans to be open in its new location Monday, March 2, Reuter said. Its final day at the mall is Saturday, Feb. 28.

“This really gets us into a real building that’s a professional pharmacy,” he said.

The store, commonly known by its former name, White Drug, is selling out of its food and other merchandise at the mall location through the rest of February.

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Co-op store vital to Regent

0215 Regent Coop 2 — The Regent Co-Op Store’s facade has barely changed over the years. It opened in 1936 and continues to serve the small community today.

REGENT — Darrel Remington remembers when Regent supported three grocery stores.

“All were important, of course,” he said as he looked over a mostly quiet Main Street on the morning of Feb. 5. “Then it narrowed down to eventually the one.”

The one, thanks to sustained community efforts, has fought through the tough times and still provides an essential service to the small southwest North Dakota town of less than 200 people.

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