Wabash Valley Resources gets $1.5 billion loan from U.S. Department of Energy

Greg Zoeller, WVR vice president for external affairs, stated, “This project fulfills the long-sought goal of having our first fertilizer plant in Indiana for corn farmers while creating jobs and opportunities for the Wabash Valley by reutilizing a former coal power plant.”

The federal loan “triggers the use of all the private equity we already have,” Zoeller said. The project must use all of those private and investor funds before WVR can use any of the federal loan money.

“With this loan, all of our other financing is fully committed,” he said. “It allows us to start to sign contracts to build an ammonia plant, which will take us a couple of years.” Among those disappointed by the news was Kerwin Olson, executive director of Citizens Action Coalition, which has long raised concerns about the project’s carbon sequestration component.

“This is extremely disheartening news. The health and safety of the community is at risk and taxpayer dollars will be squandered on outdated and dirty 20th century technology for what will likely be a massive boondoggle,” Olson said.

Wabash Valley Resources has previously said it plans to pipe and inject 1.67 million tons of carbon dioxide annually a mile below the earth’s surface as part of its plan to produce anhydrous ammonia fertilizer at the former coal gasification plant. Zoeller said WVR has the authority to construct the CO2 wells, but to inject CO2 it will have to go through another process. Injection would be among the last things to occur in the project. “We have to make ammonia before we inject anything,” Zoeller said. The federal loan would be repaid through the project, with a lot of it coming from carbon capture, Zoeller said.

Meanwhile, WVR said in a news release that the federal loan “supports WVR’s $2.6 billion clean ammonia fertilizer project, which will repurpose an existing clean-coal gasification plant for ammonia production,” Wabash Valley Resources stated in a news release.

According to DOE, the project will restart and repurpose a coal gasification plant idled since 2016 to produce 500,000 metric tons of anhydrous ammonia per year by using coal from a nearby southern Indiana mine and petcoke as feedstock.

Dan Williams, Wabash Valley Resources chief executive officer, stated, “This project is more than an investment; it’s a new chapter for a worldclass facility and the community that built it. With the support of the U.S. Department of Energy, our elected leaders, our Korean partners, and America’s skilled workforce, we’re restoring good-paying jobs and proving that rural Indiana can help lead America’s clean energy future.

Williams added, “We’re especially grateful to the men and women of organized labor — particularly the national IBEW and our local building trades unions — whose skill and professionalism will bring this vision to life.”

The Wabash project will bring the gasification plant back online to produce ammonia fertilizer – a vital resource for farmers across the Corn Belt, which currently relies on imports from Canada, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and Russia, the DOE release stated.

This marks the second closed loan under the Energy Dominance Financing Program created by the Working Families Tax Cut, also known as the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Not everyone’s thrilled

Concerned Citizens Against Wabash Valley Resources has long raised concerns about the company’s plans for carbon sequestration.

Opponents say carbon capture is not a proven technology, and risks include potential water and soil contamination; human health and safety risks; seismic activity; and pipeline ruptures.

Other concerns relate to emergency response, safety and evacuation, the group says.

Olson, of Citizens Action Coalition, said “it is extremely telling and disingenuous that the [Department of Energy] press release fails to mention the CCS component of this project. Not surprising however considering this Administration has repealed the endangerment finding and is denying climate change."

Olson continued, “Therefore, they are hiding the fact that this project is taking advantage of the CCS tax credits included in President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, which was designed in part, to address the climate crisis. So, if there’s no climate crisis, why is the Trump Administration supporting this project? Makes no sense.”

In an emailed statement, Whitney Boyce of Concerned Citizens Against Wabash Valley Resources said, “It is shameful that this administration would hand out $1.5 billion to a privately owned, Korean-backed corporation during a shutdown when everyday people can’t receive basic government services and government employees go unpaid.

“Vermillion and Vigo County communities, both directly targeted by the Wabash Valley Resources Pilot Project, are standing united together against this unwanted, unnecessary project,” the statement said.

Boyce continued, “Indiana law states WVR must have 60% voluntary pore space before eminent domain can be used to take our property against our will. This company and its foreign partners will be hard pressed to ever have majority support in our community for their CO2 dumps. We are steadfast in our commitment to protecting Hoosier land and lives from this dangerous scheme. It is our land, not theirs.”