North Dakota Governor Jack Dalrymple and Badlands NGL's LLC chairman and CEO William Jeffrey Gilliam have announced a new polyethylene (PE) manufacturing facility to be built in North Dakota. At an estimated $4 billion, this will be the largest private sector investment made in state history.

The value-added manufacturing facility will use North Dakota's abundant supply of natural gas liquid (NGL) sourced ethane gas coming out of the Williston Basin as a byproduct of oil production. The project will significantly reduce the amount of natural gas flared into the atmosphere, which has been a critical area of focus for state and industry leaders.

The facility will be able to produce 1.5 million metric tons of polyethylene, or 3.3 billion pounds annually, and employ in excess of 500 highly trained persons in manufacturing, marketing, administrative, safety, financial and executive positions. The project will take at least three years for full development.

"This project is fully aligned with our goals to reduce flaring, add value to our energy resources right here in North Dakota and create diverse job opportunities across the state," Dalrymple said. "By advancing the responsible development of our energy resources and by adding value to all of our resources, the opportunities in North Dakota are boundless.".

To bring this world-scale plant to fruition, Badlands is working with two strategic partners, Tecnicas Reunidas, or TR (www.tecnicasreunidas.es), which is based in Madrid, as well as Vinmar Projects (www.vinmar.com/projects/) of Houston. TR, one of the largest petrochemicals and polymers contractors in the world, is completing a preliminary engineering analysis for Badlands. This work is scheduled for completion in 2014 and will include completion of technology evaluations and ethane to ethylene and ethylene to PE licensor selection, ethane aggregation engineering and planning and final site selection.

Vinmar provides long term product off-take services in support of project finance for the development partners. Vinmar and Badlands have signed a mutually binding, 15-year product off-take Memorandum of Understanding for 100 percent of the PE product to be produced by the Badlands project.

Badlands NGL's LLC is a Delaware limited liability company.Principals and strategic partners of Badlands have considerable experience in development, construction and management of NGL to polyolefin products.