Category: Monke

Exec: Davis Refinery Not Affected by Dakota Prairie Refinery Sale

BELFIELD — The company trying to build an oil refinery just three miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park in Billings County isn’t slowing down its efforts, even after the Dakota Prairie Refinery sold at a loss earlier this week.

Thomas Johnson, chief operating officer of California-based Meridian Energy Group, said Tuesday’s sale of the Dickinson diesel refinery doesn’t affect his company’s goal of building the Davis Refinery, which would process 55,000 barrels of Bakken crude a day.

“We did economic modeling, what our costs are going to be and concluded that we’re going to make some profits there in the Bakken and the Belfield area,” Johnson said.

Tesoro bought the Dakota Prairie Refinery from MDU Resources Group and Calumet Specialty Products, which broke ground on the refinery in 2013 and opened it in May 2015.

Johnson pointed to the Davis Refinery’s efforts to build a refinery that’ll produce gasoline, jet fuel and ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel as the difference between its plans and the Dakota Prairie Refinery, which processed 20,000 barrels of oil into around 8,000 barrels of diesel fuel a day, along with a set of byproducts.

MDU Resources spent $430 million on the refinery and reported that it lost $7.2 million in its first quarter of operations. The refinery’s construction was plagued by cost overruns and construction delays.

Johnson said he was involved in the building of PetroMax Refining, a 25,000-barrel-a-day refinery in Houston that opened last year, and said Meridian is using a similar business model with the Davis Refinery.

“We were successful last year, so we fully anticipate being successful this time,” Johnson said. “The key is not to get into a situation like Dakota Prairie. It’s unfortunate what happened, but it is a good lesson to learn.”

In an effort to rally community support for the Davis Refinery, Meridian is hosting a public gathering at 5 p.m. Tuesday atop Buck Hill, the highest point in Theodore Roosevelt National Park’s South Unit.

Opponents of the refinery have said it will be clearly visible from Buck Hill, and have used that as ammunition to stop it from being built.

“Basically, we want to give everybody kind of an opportunity to see that the view from Buck Hill towards the refinery,” said Adam Williams, Meridian’s director of corporate communications. “We’re going to have some surveyors out and we’ll be floating several large weather balloons at the exact height as the top of the crude tower from grade. We want to do all we can to give people an opportunity to see what the effects will be, or if there’s any visual line of sight from Buck Hill. My guess is it won’t be too visible from the naked eye.”

The Billings County Commission is scheduled to discuss the Davis Refinery for its third straight monthly meeting at 9 a.m. Wednesday. Williams said Meridian CEO Bill Prentice plans to attend the meeting, along with several other of the company’s key players.

Beach Man Charged With Murder After Allegedly Shooting Man in Head

BEACH — A Beach man has been charged with murdering another man three weeks after he allegedly shot him in the head.

Though details about the incident are slim, court documents state Gabriel Alexander Castro, 22, shot Richard Young, 24, of Beach, on June 6 with a 1911 model .45-caliber pistol.

Young died from his injuries on June 10 in a Bismarck hospital.

Castro was officially charged with Class AA felony murder on June 24, the day he made his initial appearance in Southwest District Court, and is being held on $500,000 bond at the Southwest Multi-County Correctional Center in Dickinson. If convicted, he faces life in prison.

Court documents state Castro also intentionally interfered with law enforcement’s investigation by “altering the firearm and removing items with fingerprints.” He faces charges of hindering law enforcement, a Class C felony, and providing false information to an officer about the circumstances surrounding the shooting, a Class A misdemeanor.

Castro has a preliminary hearing before Southwest District Judge Dann Greenwood on July 28.

Golden Valley County Sheriff Scott Steele said he could not provide details about the case as it remains under investigation.

Steele added that he could not comment on whether or not the pistol Castro used was legally obtained.

Golden Valley County State’s Attorney Christina Wenko said both the sheriff’s office and the state Bureau of Criminal Investigation are investigating the shooting.

Beach Mayor Walt Losinski said it has been decades since the last murder charge in Beach. He recalled a murder happening sometime in the 1970s, but none since.

He said he doesn’t know much about the shooting and neither do many others in the southwest North Dakota town of about 1,100 people just 1 mile from the Montana state line.

“They’ve sure kept quiet about it because I haven’t heard anything,” he said, referring to law enforcement.

The two men both came to Beach from other states. Castro’s Facebook page states he was working in the deli at the Pilot Flying J Travel Center in Beach and that he attended high school in Phoenix.

A Flying J spokesperson said she could not comment on Castro’s employment. A GoFundMe page dedicated to Young states that he was originally from Oregon, was a member of the U.S. Marine Corps and had a child.

Referendum for New Richardton-Taylor School Passes

RICHARDTON — The Richardton-Taylor school district is getting a new high school.

Residents of Richardton and Taylor voted on Tuesday night to approve a bond referendum during a special election, though the results were clearly split between the two towns.

Sixty-five percent voted in favor of the $2 million bond referendum for the $12 million project. Curiously, nineteen less voters approved of raising the district’s debt limit by 5 percent to help finance the project with a $10 million loan from the Bank of North Dakota.

“We’ve been working on this thing for two-and-a-half, three years,” Richardton-Taylor Superintendent Brent Bautz said late Tuesday night. “We’ve put a lot of hard work into it. It’s good to finally realize it’s coming to fruition.”

The bond referendum needed a 60 percent “yes” vote to pass. It was decided by just 28 votes.

Vote tallies showed Richardton voters overwhelmingly supported the project while Taylor residents opposed it.

Seventy-three percent of Richardton residents voted in favor of both the referendum and raising the debt limit. Only 43 percent of Taylor residents voted for the referendum and 40 percent voting to raise the debt limit.

Bautz said the district needed to raise the debt limit because the North Dakota Century Code would have only allowed the district to borrow 5 percent of its assessed value, which wouldn’t have been enough for the project. The approve allows the district to borrow 10 percent of its assessed value.

Bautz said the district would like to begin construction on the project next spring with a scheduled completion by summer 2018.

Richardton-Taylor’s administration and school board approached residents about a remodel earlier this year because of decay in the 55-year-old facility and as a long-term cost-cutting move.

The current high school building in Richardton holds grades 7-12. The elementary school in Taylor has grades 2-6. Pre-kindergarten through first-grade students are in the St. Mary’s Social Center Building in Richardton, which costs roughly $72,000 annually in lease payments and additional staff.

With the referendum passed, pre-K through first grade will move to Taylor and grades 5-12 will be placed in Richardton.

Insight Interview With City Commissioner-Elect Sarah Jennings

[fcc_jw_player key=”7L5Zf1Ad”]

This week, Brock and I sat down to talk with Sarah Jennings, who was recently elected to the Dickinson City Commission at age 26.

Here’s the rest of the episode: