Saturday, June 23, 2012

June 23, 2012 Freedom Energy Diesel Asks for Time To Go Overseas for Financing (video); City Grants One-Year Extension (video)

Above: Video of the City Council June 19 vote to give Freedom Energy Diesel (FED) another year to start construction on its coal gasification plant in the East Tennessee Progress Center.

Background. Just over a year ago, the Industrial Development Board of Morristown and Freedom Energy Diesel (FED) announced that FED would build a coal gasification plant in the East Tennessee Progress Center. The projected cost of the plant and equipment was over $400 Million dollars.

At that time, the IDB asked the City to move quickly to sell 116 acres to D4 Capital, the parent company of FED, so construction could begin according to FED's "aggressive" schedule.

The City sold 116 acres to D4 Capital in June 2011 at a deeply discounted rate with a provision that if actual construction on the Freedom Energy building had not begun by June 27, 2012, the land would be deeded back to the City at no cost to the City.

As the June 27, 2012, deadline approached and with no construction on the building taking place, FED representative David Wild met with the IDB on June 5, 2012, to ask the IDB to ask the City to give FED another year to get its financing in place and start construction. At that time, FED informed the IDB that it was working on securing overseas financing for the project.

Below: Video of the June 5 IDB meeting at which Freedom Energy asked the IDB to recommend that the City give FED another year to start construction. FED also stated that it would be going overseas to seek financing. 


No comments: