MAKOTI The Three Affiliated Tribes are moving forward with building a refinery on the Fort Berthold Reservation.
Tex Hall, tribal chairman, said Tuesday the Three Affiliated Tribes are working on the application for a TED Bond, a U.S.Treasury tribal economic development tax-exempt bond.
Hall said the TED Bond is a "better deal (with) lower borrowing rates and good for the investor." He said the Three Affiliated Tribes issue the bond and sells to the investor.
The tribes received the final permit approval, a water discharge permit, from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in June to build Thunder Butte Petroleum Services, Inc., a clean fuels refinery to refine Bakken Formation crude oil.
When finished, the refinery would refine Bakken crude for use on the reservation, in North Dakota and throughout the United States, Hall said. He said it would decrease the nation's need to depend on foreign oil.l
The refinery is being planned for a site on the reservation near Makoti in southwest Ward County, where the tribes own 467 acres of land. The site is near N.D. Highway 23 and the Canadian Pacific Railway tracks.