Summit Carbon Solutions, the multi-billion-dollar carbon capture and sequestration project effectively controlled by Oklahoma oilman Harold Hamm and his family, has faced some challenges in the past week, first in Iowa followed by a court ruling in North Dakota.
Last week, the Iowa Utilities Commission denied the firm’s request to consolidate pending carbon dioxide proceedings and delayed hearings on two project segments until early next year. The Iowa Capital Dispatch reported the Iowa Utilities Commission (IUC) rejected Summit’s request to consolidate permit cases but established separate hearing dates for two sub-five-mile sections of the pipeline in Ida and Floyd counties.
GasWorld reported that the decision adds to a string of regulatory and legal setbacks for Summit, which has faced opposition over land access, eminent domain powers, and pipeline safety across its proposed Midwestern network. Farmers, landowners and ethanol producers in Iowa are watching the outcome as it could influence agricultural investment, property rights and access to emerging low-carbon fuel markets.
The first permit, approved in 2024, covered more than 600 miles of pipeline in Iowa, intended to carry CO2 volumes captured from ethanol plants to a proposed underground sequestration site in North Dakota.
The Iowa Utilities Commission decision was followed Friday by a North Dakota judge’s ruling that state rules on where infrastructure such as pipelines can be built do not automatically trump local zoning ordinances.
The ruling comes from a case in which a group of landowners and Emmons and Burleigh counties sued the Public Service Commission and pipeline developer Summit Carbon Solutions, reported the North Dakota Monitor.
An attorney for Emmons County called the ruling a “win for local government authority” and the county’s ability to set rules setback or how far a pipeline route has to be from homes and other buildings.
“It’s really significant because what the judge is saying is that he agrees with the local government that the statute preserves local control and there’s still a place for local control,” said Errick Braaten, an attorney in Bismarck.
South Central District Court Judge Jackson Lofgren’s order says the pipeline route permit that the PSC issued to Summit in November 2024 remains in place. However, the court says the PSC must address problems identified in the ruling.
The judge said the Public Service Commission must offer a better explanation why it believes the pipeline route won’t impair public welfare. The ruling apparently indicated the state agency should address safety.
The Iowa-based company’s original plan was to gather carbon emissions from ethanol plants in five states and use a network of pipelines to bring the CO2 to western North Dakota for permanent underground storage.
But the company has been unable to obtain a permit for a pipeline through South Dakota to get to North Dakota.
In addition, Lofgren ruled a North Dakota law allowing the underground storage was unconstitutional, echoing a ruling in a different court. An appeal seeking to retain access to some of that storage is pending with the North Dakota Supreme Court.
When the idea of a carbon capture pipeline company was originated, Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources committed $250 million in March 2022. He and his family later expanded their involvement and took a major ownership stake and effectively controlled 83% of the company after private restructuring.
The pipeline project began with an estimated cost of $4.5 billion and, but it has swelled to an estimated $9 billion. Since its inception, the project was met with a South Dakota law created to ban eminent domain for private carbon pipelines. The ban forced Summit to announce in May of this year that it was pivoting its primary underground storage destination from North Dakota to Wyoming.
The company says its plan to build the pipeline system to capture carbon dioxide from ethanol plants is a “major investment in the future of agriculture—keeping ethanol competitive and rural communities strong.”
The company was sued two years ago by pipe manufacturer Welspun Tubular claiming it had been commissioned by the company to produce nearly 785 miles of pipe in May of 2023 at a cost of nearly $183 million. But regulatory delays and public opposition led to Summit asking for a delay of fulfilling the contract.
