Koch Fertilizer will continue to make natural gas payments

GAS CONSUMPTION TAX

Koch Fertilizer Wever will continue to pay the utility replacement tax as previously paid by Iowa Fertilizer Company. As the law is written, five specific facilities were granted a utility replacement tax exemption, including Koch Fertilizer Fort Dodge. We are glad to be part of Lee County and look forward to having a positive impact in the area communities in the years to come through both financial investments and volunteering.”

Michelle Jones, Koch Fertilizer spokesperson

LEE COUNTY – A question that’s been heating up of late around natural gas consumption at the fertilizer facility in Wever has been answered.
In a statement from Koch Fertilizer Wever Wednesday morning, the company said it is still required to make natural gas consumption tax payments to Lee County. The issue came up as part of several inquiries into whether or not an exemption to the tax carries over to the Wever facility. Koch has exemptions in place for another plant in the state.
“Koch Fertilizer Wever will continue to pay the utility replacement tax as previously paid by Iowa Fertilizer Company,” said Michelle Jones, a company spokesperson for Koch Fertilizer.
“As the law is written, five specific facilities were granted a utility replacement tax exemption, including Koch Fertilizer Fort Dodge. We are glad to be part of Lee County and look forward to having a positive impact in the area communities in the years to come through both financial investments and volunteering.”
Koch completed a purchase of the facility in August for $3.6 billion. The facility opened in 2017 and has the capacity to produce 3.5 million metric tons of nitrogen fertilizers and diesel exhaust fluid annually, complementing Koch’s existing business.
The facility currently employees about 300 people, per Koch.
The company indicated it will also continue to pay the current PILOT (Payment In Lieu Of Taxes) payments under an incentive program negotiated with county officials prior to construction of the facility. That program runs for 20 years with incrementally increasing payment amounts ending with $1.3 million for the final five years.
At a townhall meeting last Thursday, Gordon Baier, CEO of GoSolar announced that plans are fully underway to build a hydrogen solar facility on property near the Koch facility that would become a supply feeder of nitrogen and possibly other products to Koch.
“We want to support domestic needs as well as international supply,” he said. “Particularly when it comes to green ammonia production from renewable energy sources.”
Baier said there is a commitment to long-term employees of 100-200 employees.
“For this small town, these are good paying jobs. Not low grade, but good paying jobs,” he said.
Those jobs would be around engineering, security, and safety under a company called Green Bay Go Solar Development.
“We have looked at Lee County specifically because of the infrastructure that is here, what existing industries are here, the resources in the county, and what guidelines are here,” he said.
“No. 1. There were no guidelines here and so that’s always good for us as a developer, but that doesn’t mean we wouldn’t follow new guidelines, and we want to protect the landowners.”
Baier said he’s developed more than 100 products since 2007 and has been in the energy business since the 1990s.
“In Europe, we have very hard and strict guidelines, and I would say it’s good that you put them together,” he said regarding the county’s proposed solar and wind utility ordinances.
“We would like to be the first large-scale solar in combination with hydrogen production conversion into ammonia, as well as a data center conglomerate energy system in Green Bay-Wever,” he said.
“We announced this more than five years ago and we reached out to landowners there already and there are (people) under land-lease contract in this room.”
Baier said the project is a large-scale endeavor including a data center because of the fiber optics and water wells on the properties.
“These data centers need cooling. We have a lot of resources that can be combined together and put into additional production specifically for hydrogen. Hydrogen is massively needed for a co-located plant and that is one of the industries that came here to Wever and we can provide them with additional commodities, and with  new access to the ammonia pipeline, we are capable to produce more commodities for farm use of ammonia for fertilizer productions.”
Residents questioned Baier about additional use of water in the area, but Baier said the amount of water being used for hydrogen creation would be “way less” than water for irrigation and then that water can be reclaimed. He said water being used to cool the data centers would be circulated back where the elements would be split to create the hydrogen. The hydrogen element is split from the oxygen in water to create hydrogen.
County Supervisor Chairman Tom Schulz said the county has no authority  over water rights.