North Dakota Soybean Processors gives up on Spiritwood but not on project

In North Dakota, after more than three years, $6 million of investment and thousands of hours of management time, North Dakota Soybean Processors announced that it is abandoning its efforts to build a large-scale soybean crushing facility at the Spiritwood Energy Park in Spiritwood, North Dakota.

“We made every effort to build the first farmer-owned soybean crush plant in the State of North Dakota at the Spiritwood Energy Park site,” stated Minnesota farmer and NDSP President Bruce Hill.

“We had the site and plant engineering completed, construction contract bids solicited, the air permit in hand, and we had assembled commitments and term sheets with producer partnerships and debt financing totaling over $278,000,000 to fully fund the project” Hill explained, “when the SEPA board voted last July to terminate our site contract to construct the first farmer owned soybean crush plant in the State at the Spiritwood Energy Park.”

“We were disappointed in the decision,” Hill explained, “and we went to court to try and build a plant at that site.” Last week, NDSP agreed with SEPA to dismiss its lawsuit with prejudice, meaning its bid to build a plant at the Spiritwood site is over. “We are not done in our efforts,” Hill stated.

“Our plant and site engineering is portable, and our air permit can be amended,” Hill continued, “And we intend to move forward with our efforts to bring the first farmer-owned soybean crush plant to the State of North Dakota, it just won’t be at Spiritwood.”