Contractors and area residents met to hear what the company proposing to build an oil refinery near Stoughton will need in terms of contracted services for the facility鈥檚 construction and operation.
Keith Stemler, CEO of Dominion Energy Processing Group, gave a presentation of the proposed plant and fielded questions from the audience about the project and about his company鈥檚 requirements for contractors.
鈥淭he turnout was great. It was a good learning experience for us as a developer to see what contractors are local, and to identify certain skill sets we require to reach mechanical completion,鈥� he said. 鈥淭here are multiple disciplines, and we needed to know how large the companies are, what their interests are and what they would like to see out of it.鈥�
Dominion Energy, a Canadian subsidiary of American oil company Quantum Energy, is proposing to build a refinery capable of processing 40,000 barrels a day of crude oil from the Bakken formation, with the plant proposed to be situated next to Crescent Point Energy鈥檚 Viewfield gas plant near Stoughton.
鈥淲e had some really good discussions and great questions, and afterwards I got to talk one-on-one with many of them 鈥� It was very rewarding,鈥� said Stemler.
He noted that the refinery is still in the proposal stage at this point, and still has many steps to go to reach the project stage. The purpose of this meeting was to explain the company鈥檚 need to do their due diligence in terms of talking further with prospective contractors, what their experience is, what equipment they have used, who they have worked for, what size the company is and what facilities or projects they have worked on.
鈥淲e want to make sure that selected contractors are capable of fulfilling the work we need them to do. I stressed very hard that we have to have the right disciplines doing the right work. We don鈥檛 want anybody biting off more than they can chew,鈥� he said.
He added there will be further interviews that will dig deeper into the qualifications and experience of each contractor and whether they are bondable.
鈥淚t takes a long time to break that down. What we do is take back their business cards and put them into a spreadsheet, identify their discipline, and do some research on them,鈥� said Stemler.
鈥淲e do these types of meetings so we can get to know them.鈥�
The company still has to go through the permitting process for all of the various approvals that are needed before they reach the stage where they will start staffing.
鈥淚鈥檓 hopeful we can get through these next steps fairly quickly, but each one of these steps is taking more time because there are a lot more details as we move farther along,鈥� said Stemler.
鈥淚t鈥檚 getting closer to the nuts and bolts. This is a big project.鈥�
Some of the upcoming stages of the process include a mediation plan and a risk evaluation for the investors.
Stemler noted he met with Mayor Bill Knous and Stoughton鈥檚 town council on Feb. 16, and is planning to hold another town hall in Stoughton in the near future, to keep the community up to date on where the project is at and what the next steps will be to make the refinery a reality.
鈥淲e鈥檒l be continuing to have open discussions,鈥� he said, adding he intends to keep holding more town hall meetings.
