DEVILS LAKE, N.D. (AP) — A Canada-based energy company is considering building an oil refinery in the eastern North Dakota community of Devils Lake.
Eagles Ledge Energy LLC is planning public informational meetings early next month on the proposed facility that would process 20,000 barrels of oil daily, according to Forward Devils Lake Executive Director Rachel Lindstrom. The plant would cost at least $200 million and would take two years to build, she said.
The company, which is based in Vancouver, British Columbia, did not immediately respond to Associated Press requests for comment left by phone and email before business hours Tuesday.
The Devils Lake City Commission on Monday night passed a resolution supporting the proposed refinery on 300 acres in the city's new industrial park, KZZY radio reported. Lindstrom said the plant would employ at least 100 people, and would be an opportunity for Devils Lake to benefit from the oil boom in the western part of the state.
"We're either going to join the group or we're going to get left behind, and someone else is going to take the opportunity," she said.
North Dakota has gone from being the ninth-biggest oil producer among U.S. states in 2006 to its second-biggest, behind only Texas, thanks to energy companies cracking the rich Bakken and Three Forks formations in the western part of the state.
The only refinery operating in the North Dakota is the Tesoro Corp. facility at Mandan, but construction is underway on refineries at Dickinson and on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation. Both of those plants are expected to process 20,000 barrels of oil per day.