02/24/17  Jefferson County Still In Running For Fuel Processing Plant

Little Rock based Energy Security Partners LLC and Pine Bluff officials announced recently that Jefferson County is being considered as the top location to build and operate a potential 3.7 billion dollar industrial gas-to-liquids processing facility.

The GTL project, first reported by Talk Business and Politics in June, is being developed by former Clinton Administration officials, General Wesley Clark and Rodney Slater, and a team of top energy industry leaders with expertise in a proprietary GTL process that will convert natural gas into clean burning diesel fuel.

Co-founded by Clark and former Exxon-Mobil executive and chemical engineer Roger Williams, the multi-billion dollar “super project” would be the first large scale GTL processing plant of its kind in the U.S. It would be located on one thousand acres near the Pine Bluff Arsenal.

The project calls for the creation of 225 new, permanent plant operator positions with an average of 40 dollars an hour. The construction period is anticipated to create or support more than 5,000 jobs within the state and would add 333 million dollars in annual labor income statewide.

Despite the vote of confidence from Jefferson County officials, the transformative super project still has several hurdles before it becomes a reality. For one, the Pine Bluff area is among several other potential site locations that ESP execs are looking at for the plant.