US Wants Oil Refineries, Native Tribes Seek Permit
December 14, 2005
Story by Janet McGurty
Planet Ark
NEW YORK - In 1997, a group of Native American workers stranded by a
blizzard on an oil installation came up with the idea of building a
refinery on reservation lands, bringing tax revenues and jobs to a place
where unemployment hovered between 60 and 70 percent.
Blueprints were drawn, the local college began teaching a refinery
program, and the people of the Three Affiliated Tribes of Fort Berthold
in North Dakota placed their hopes in what would be the first oil
refinery to be built in the United States since 1976.
Eight years later, as the White House presses for new refineries to meet
rising demand and cool record fuel prices, the tribes of Fort Berthold
are still waiting for a federal permit to build their plant.
"We have answered the call," said Horace Pipe, a petroleum geologist
formerly with the Bureau of Indian Affairs and now in the forefront of
the movement to build the refinery. But it will be at least another 15
months before they receive initial approval from the Environmental
Protection Agency, he said.
"I understand the EPA wanting to err on the side of caution... But we
haven't had a refinery built since 1976 and the codes are outdated," said
Pipe.
The slow-moving project reflects a daunting US permitting process that
many savvy oil companies have said is the reason the United States is
facing record fuel bills and an unprecedented crunch in production capacity.
The last refinery built on US soil was Marathon Oil's 245,000 barrel per
day plant in Garyville, Louisiana -- and that was nearly 30 years ago.
The intervening years have revolutionized the technology of refineries,
traditionally heavy-polluters. New ones are cleaner, more-efficient
plants, experts say, leaving federal environmental permitting procedures
out of date.
"Emissions would be less than that from the University of North Dakota,"
said Bob Wolley, president of Triad, a Canadian-based engineering and
processing consulting firm which designed the refinery.
Unlike other locations, a refinery on Indian lands would require no
permits from state governments, theoretically streamlining a stringent
process.
Pipe said that during a visit to Washington D.C. in November, he met with
senators, congressmen, members of the Department of Energy and the
Department of the Interior, all of whom expressed interest in getting the
refinery built.
EPA HOGTIED
The new refinery would run synthetic crude oil made from Canadian oil tar
sands coming down via an existing pipeline near the reservation.
This feedstock would maximize the amount of gasoline, jet fuel, propane
and diesel the refinery could produce, and burning natural gas as the
power source would keep particulate emission levels lower than those from
existing refineries.
The Environmental Protection Agency, watchdog of the US environment, has
said it is keen to support President Bush's initiative to expand US
refining capacity. But is bound to current permitting processes.
"The certainty and simplicity of legislation is preferred over regulation
and litigation, which is why the President has asked Congress to act
quickly on his request that will allow us to build and expand refineries
to meet our rising fuel demand for the good of the country and its
consumers," Eryn Witcher, press secretary for the agency, told Reuters.
Bush has repeatedly called on Congress to create legislation to speed up
permitting, and has offered former military bases to oil companies
seeking refinery sites.
"We are doing everything we can," said Carol Campbell, of the EPA's
District 8, which is based in Colorado and has jurisdiction over the project.
Triad's Wolley said one aim of the refinery, slated to produce 15,000
barrels per day of fuel, was to make it minimally intrusive.
Improved technology water treatment technology would cut steam use as
well as providing a separate system to treat water used in processing,
bringing it back to industrially clean levels, Triad's Wolley said.
© Reuters News Service 2005
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