N Dakota CO2 pipeline project awaits new hearing

North Dakota regulators will soon reconsider the once-rejected Midwest Carbon Express CO2 Pipeline Project, but opposition remains for the $5.5bn carbon dioxide (CO2) transport and storage project in the state and beyond.

Summit Carbon Solutions wants to link CO2-producing ethanol plants in Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, North Dakota and South Dakota to underground storage north of Bismarck, North Dakota, via a 2,000 mile (3,218km) pipeline system. The project could store up to 12mn tons of CO2 annually, according to the developers.

The scope of the project has required a considerable amount of public and landowner consultation for Summit which has encountered resistance in several jurisdictions. Summit's original application in North Dakota was rejected on 4 August, with the North Dakota Public Service Commission (PSC) citing Summit's unresponsiveness to "outstanding legitimate impacts" by concerned landowners. At issue were eminent domain, safety, property valuation and CO2 sequestration storage policy concerns, among others in the application that was filed in October 2022.

Summit on 18 August filed a revised permit application with several changes including reroutes, reducing the width of the project's corridor and workarounds with several key landowners. The PSC agreed to rehear the application, but a hearing date for the Iowa-based company to make its case is still to be decided, as another motion on another issue by Summit has yet to be argued.

That issue is outlined in a 29 September request by Summit to the PSC to supersede and preempt ordinances in two counties, Burleigh and Emmons, that it says conflict with both state law relating to carbon sequestration and the federal Pipeline Safety Act. Opponents of the project, led by former Bismarck mayor John Warford, say the request should not be entertained because the project has not even been approved.

"Summit's latest effort to waste the Commission's and the parties' resources should not be rewarded, and the motion can and should be denied on this basis alone," the opposition group, the Bismarck Area Intervenors, wrote in a 12 October letter to the PSC.

Summit has also not demonstrated how existing county ordinances prevent the company from building the pipeline, according to the coalition that also includes two prominent Bismarck-based property developers.

The Laborers District Council of Minnesota and North Dakota, a union representing about 13,000 workers, said it supports Summit's request to supersede and preempt the county ordinances, saying "regulatory patchwork from one jurisdiction to another" deters investment and complicates development.

The PSC on 16 October motioned to set a hearing date for Summit's ordinance request, but that, along with a date for the rehearing of Summit's permit application, has yet to be decided.

The North Dakota PSC this week also said it needed more information from Summit, asking for detailed maps, easements granted by county, number of suppliers signed up to utilize the proposed pipeline, among other items. Summit has until the end of the month to provide these details.

South Dakota last month denied Summit's permit application for the pipeline in that state for failing to work with counties and their ordinances. Another CO2 pipeline and storage project, the Heartland Greenway pipeline, was cancelled today because of ongoing regulatory challenges, citing in part a denied permit in South Dakota.

Minnesota and Iowa are still going through the hearing process for parts of the Summit project there, with landowners in each state voicing concern over the project.

By Brett Holmes