Montana to Go Green in Eco-Friendly CTL Plant

Governor Schweitzer is seeing his efforts come to a realization. As well as the efforts of the Montana delegaton. A state of the art coal conversion plant has been announced by equity partners Bull Mountain Land Company. The equity partners include, Bull Mountain, Arch Minerals and DRW. Arch Minerals is one of the largest coal companies in North America. The partners have reached a tentative financing agreement for construction of a coal to liquid (CTL) to be built in Southeastern Montana near the town of Round Up.

On the technology side, GE has agreed to provide the technology to convert the coal into Syngas. In turn the innovative and heralded company Rentech will convert the Syngas into a liquid form. Rentech a major player in the CTL field has had other successes in the Mid West and currently has a number of projects on the burner after entering into a joint venture agreement previously with Peabody. Peabody has major reserve holdings in the Mid West and Montana. There is also a one site agreement with a site in Wyoming. The company utilizes the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) Coal-to-Liquids (CTL) Product Development Unit (PDU). There are current plans for a plant near Denver.

An accomplished Canadian firm SNC/Lavelin, will be in charge of engineering, design, procurement and construction of the initial environmental work and eventually oversee the construction of this first eco-friendly CTL in Montana.

If it sounds like a lot of partners and players. The answer is yes, it takes just the right amount of technical know how, just the right type of financing and the existing reserve rights. A very complex recipe and it would not have come together at all, but for the current administration's leadership in the area of alternative fuels and environmentally friendly technology.