UPDATED 3:30 P.M.
The CHEDA board was given an update at their Tuesday morning meeting on the Epitome Energy project taking place in Crookston. The timeline for the plan is still on pace and moving forward smoothly.
Epitome Energy President Dennis Egan spoke to the board about the progress and updated them on procedures moving forward. “We for months had been working and waiting on a permit for the modeling,” said Egan. “The last couple of weeks we’ve started to get some good results out of the air modeling, and we received additional information from American Crystal Sugar from the state of Minnesota and have taken the new boundaries from our sight and it’s coming together.”
The new boundaries have increased from approximately just under 60 acres of land to 60 acres. Egan believes that all federal requirements and state thresholds have been met. “We believe that we’ve met all federal and state thresholds for PM10 and PM2.5 which is what gets measured for industrial projects,” said Egan. “We’re under those thresholds, so when I said we’re in a good space, it was in regards to getting our air permits submitted to the state of Minnesota.”
While certain dates for accomplishments will be looked at closer later today, the goal and aspirations of Egan are to have the ground-breaking on the project still take place in 2022. “The goal is still early part of next year will break ground,” said Egan. “Some of the other things have also started to fall into place in terms of off take agreements of Soybean Meal. We believe we’ve got a place for over 900,000 tons of Soybean meal, and we’re working on the oil offtakes.”
Egan was at a conference last week and was working on signing oil off takes with four other companies. With the signing of these oil companies, that would also potentially bring in equity for the project.
While the project is far from complete, many around the CHEDA board are hopeful the deal goes through and gets done on time. Crookston Mayor Dale Stainbrook said “I hope this deal gets done and goes through smoothly because this is a good deal for the city of Crookston.”
UPDATED AFTER RECEIVING NEW INFORMATION THIS AFTERNOON
City Administrator Amy Finch and Epitome Energy President Dennis Egan met following the CHEDA meeting to discuss deadlines and meeting times moving forward. She shared more of their conversation and what was discussed. “We wanted to touch base on what some upcoming meeting deadlines would look like,” said Finch. “What we expect to happen is to meet before the City Council on the August 9th meeting, to discuss the updating boundaries that have expanded, and that will also require revision to the proposal and option agreement.”
Epitome is waiting to hear back on if all of their air modeling comes back within the revised boundary and can be ready for the next steps. Following the August City Council meeting, the project will once again be back in front of the CHEDA board in September and possibly October to discuss timelines and a loan agreement that is in place.
Finch said that Egan has not raised any concerns about the project or timeline being delayed/pushed back. “There is nothing I’m aware of or that Mr. Egan has communicated that would slow us down. I think we’re all optimistic,” said Finch. “We maybe feel like we were sitting in neutral and idling for a little but now we’re in drive and slowly starting to move forward again. As we get closer, and the air permitting is submitted I think other things will happen to coincide with that.”
Epitome is still expecting to be fully operational in 2023 with the ground-breaking taking place sometime in 2022.
