Fluor awarded FEED contract for North Dakota carbon capture project

FLUOR has been awarded a FEED contract for Minnkota’s Project Tundra, a CCUS project in North Dakota, US.

Project Tundra aims to build the world’s largest carbon capture facility at the Milton R Young station, operated by Minnkota Power Cooperative. Young Station is a coal-fired power plant that uses 4m t/y of lignite, and one of its two units will be retrofitted with Fluor’s proprietary carbon capture technology. The amine-based technology for post-combustion capture will be used to capture 4m t/y of CO₂. The captured CO₂ will be injected into saline formations near the plant or used for enhanced oil recovery.

Mark Fields, Group President of Fluor’s Energy & Chemicals business, said: “We look forward to bringing our clean energy expertise to Project Tundra and partnering with Minnkota to build the world's largest carbon capture facility.”

Mac McLennan, Minnkota President and CEO, said: “The innovative technologies being evaluated have the potential to serve as a blueprint for the rest of the world to significantly reduce carbon dioxide emissions without sacrificing grid reliability and affordability.”

The FEED is being funded by the US Department of Energy’s Office of Fossil Energy and managed by its National Energy Technology Laboratory.  Fluor has commenced engineering and completion of the FEED is planned for the first quarter of 2021. Construction on Project Tundra is expected to begin in the fourth quarter of 2021 at the earliest, but could begin any time up to the end of 2023.

This article has been updated to correct the capture rate from 12,000 t/y to 4m t/y.