Hyperion has never built a refinery, but they sure can sell the snake oil. The recession is putting the brakes on all sorts of investment and big energy projects. Oil industry analyst Tom Kloza has said the chances of Hyperion getting its Elk Point project off the blueprints and into South Dakota's ground (and groundwater, and air) are "somewhere between slim and none."
So what does Hyperion say?? With the public hearing for their air pollution permit coming up April 15 and with KELO putting up a blip saying Hyperion's plans are a question mark, Hyperion trots out project executive Preston Phillips to manufacture the only thing he can: Hyperion's special brand of truth. Phillips tells KELO that Hyperion has more support for the refinery than last year—after all, you South Dakotans all want jobs, don't you?
Pure diversion. Hyperion could have all 400,000 workers in South Dakota submitting applications to work at their imaginary refinery, but that wouldn't have a thing to do with whether the refinery gets built. Hyperion needs investors, and of all the things today's nervous investors could sink their money into, a company that can hardly build landfills now trying to break into oil refining probably ranks somewhere around Citigroup and GM.
Hyperion's not dead, but their corporate propaganda shows they're on the defensive. The environmental permitting process gives us South Dakotans a great opportunity to tell Hyperion and our state government that we have better ideas for South Dakota's and America's energy future than some Texas speculators trying to cash in on their fantasies about being big players in a dying industry.
Hyperion doesn't have a very good spin doctor. Preston Phillips (darth vader) said to the sioux city journal they will be in operation by 2014, the argus leader 2015, and the people of union county starting in 2009 ending in 2014. now he is saying they will employ 14,000 permenant and 35,000 temporary employees. this is a joke folks.
ReplyDeleteThis is getting to be absolutely ridiculous. How long can Hyperion continue to keep up with all their bogus statements? As a business person I would not want my name attached to anything they are involved with. Those who are promoting this project are going to have egg on their face when this is all said and done. I just did a search today on the dallasnews.com website and went back in their archives to see if there was any mention of Huddleston, Hyperion and their proposed refinery. Not a SINGLE mention of this project. Hyperion is based in Dallas and Huddleston has been there his whole life. Why wouldn't the Dallas news write a BIG story on this if it was so great and wonderful. That's because they know Huddleston and his past business record and how ridiculous this whole proposal is. They aren't even giving it the time of day!
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