Summit Carbon CEO undeterred by folding of fellow CO2 pipeline project
Summit Carbon Solutions LLC is not giving up on obtaining the permits for a five-state, 2,000-mile CO2 pipeline on which it has sunk hundreds of millions of dollars... despite a competitor's decision to quit over the permitting uncertainty.
The possibility that Summit will run up against the same issues as Navigator CO2 Ventures LLC is a "fair question," CEO Lee Blank said in an interview. However, "I think the project has enough relevance and importance that I don't believe that will happen."
Iowa-headquartered farm management company Summit Agricultural Group, the investor backing Summit Carbon Solutions, secured financing in 2021 to build a carbon capture network, transporting emissions from ethanol plants across the US Midwest to a permanent storage site in North Dakota. About the same time, asset manager BlackRock Inc. and petroleum producer Valero Energy Corp. launched a similar project under the name Navigator that would store CO2 in Illinois. The proposed pipeline networks had overlapping routes in South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa and Minnesota.
On Oct. 20, Navigator scrapped its 1,300-mile project, dubbed Heartland Greenway, a few weeks after South Dakota regulators denied the developer a siting permit. Navigator said the cancellation came down to the "unpredictable nature" of state and local regulatory proceedings, particularly in South Dakota and Iowa.
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