GTL Americas remains a few steps away from a final investment decision scheduled for the first quarter of 2027, which would keep construction of a $3.5-billion gas-to-liquid facility on schedule for the start of commercial operations by 2030.
Leon Codron, the facility’s president and chief development officer of parent company Energy Security Partners, along with Chief Operating Officer Jeff Bigger, updated the Economic Development Corp. of Jefferson County (EDCJC) on the facility timeline during a meeting Tuesday afternoon. The planned commercial operations date is a year behind GTL Americas’ most recent forecast last fall.
The plant is to be constructed on more than 1,800 acres with Arkansas River access, 15 miles northwest of Pine Bluff near the National Center for Toxicological Research, just off Interstate 530. It will be designed to produce about 41,400 barrels per day of ultra-clean, low-emission fuels for transportation, creating a fuel that’s as clear as water.
It will be the first such plant in North America and it will be modeled after one that opened last year in Uzbekistan, Codron said.
Independent reporting for Pine Bluff & Jefferson County since 1879.
“I think the presentation was good,” EDCJC Chairman Scott McGeorge said. “Because of the covid, because of the complexity of permitting and all the different permits you have to get from different agencies of the United States of America, it’s taken a lot longer than we would have liked.”
Both McGeorge and Codron say they would have liked for the project to be completed by now. Energy Security Partners introduced its proposal for the plant to a state legislative Joint Committee on Energy in May 2016.
Codron highlighted its accomplishments thus far, including letters of intent for gas supply to the project and sale of products in place; and licensing agreements completed with the world’s top technology providers for GTL processing.
“That is a big project, a one-of-a-kind-type thing,” McGeorge said.
The EDCJC continues to own the property until GTL Americas executes an option agreement to buy the property. Corporation leaders expect that option to be exercised before completion of construction.
A few other steps before the final investment remain, including having financial adviser ING Bank and the debt market agree that front-end engineering and design and construction terms will meet project financing requirements, and completion of gas supply and product sales agreements.
The road connecting the plant to I-530 will take just three to six more months for completion, but meeting regulations is a process that could take until the end of 2026, Codron told the corporation.
“The road really needs to be complete for them because shift change with that many people will be unbelievable,” McGeorge said. “They’ll have a lot of trucks hauling heavy steel and all kinds of things into there, typical of when you build a plant. Of course, the initial part of it is that they will haul all types of clearing, grubbing and road equipment in there. That will be a big thing. When that road is built, there will be as little as possible disturbance to the local population. That’s what you want to do, go over and be done with it.”
Building the road is just one of five stages of construction for GTL Americas, Codron indicated. The others are site preparation to begin by the third quarter of 2025, building infrastructure to start the first quarter of 2026, building the facility itself starting the first quarter of 2027 and starting construction of the office complex in the first quarter of 2028.
The main thing, McGeorge termed, for the EDC is putting people to work. GTL Americas promises about 2,000 to 3,000 jobs, and McGeorge said he has been in contact with leaders at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff and Southeast Arkansas College about preparing future workers who could contribute to Jefferson County’s economy.
“Getting those people where they can do construction work or go into the laboratory — they’ll need chemical engineers and chemists and people like that who can graduate from UAPB and other places to do that,” McGeorge said. “But you’ve got to have kids who like science and math. In this country, you’re not getting as much of that as you did one time.”
The covid-19 pandemic, declared by the World Health Organization in March 2020 and ended as an emergency in May 2023, set GTL Americas’ timeline back about two or three years, Economic Development Alliance President Allison Thompson said.
“They’re doing things internationally, so it wasn’t just what was open here. It was travel internationally, meetings internationally and how other companies were handling it,” Thompson explained. “That’s just a guesstimate.”
The corporation also released Tyson Foods from a promissory note as a result of Tyson’s completion of an incentive agreement. The poultry company invested $48.3 million to expand its operations by adding 68 new jobs since the agreement was finalized in 2021.
This version corrects the name of the Economic Development Corporation of Jefferson County.
A vial of ultra-clean transportation fuel, the chief product of GTL Americas’ facility just northwest of Pine Bluff, is presented during an Economic Development Corporation of Jefferson County meeting. (Pine Bluff Commercial/I.C. Murrell)