SPIRITWOOD, N.D. (NewsDakota.com) – Today, the Cass County District Court entered a temporary restraining order prohibiting the Spiritwood Energy Park Association (SEPA) from terminating for convenience the agreement it entered into with NSP in 2017 for the development of a large-scale soybean-crushing facility at the Spiritwood Energy Park.

In its order, the Court additionally prohibited SEPA from entering into a new agreement with another entity to develop, construct, or operate a soybean-crushing facility in or adjacent to the Spiritwood Energy Park.

The temporary restraining order will remain in effect until further order of the Court.

The Court issued the order in response to a lawsuit NDSP filed against SEPA on August 8, 2019. In its lawsuit seeking an injunction, NDSP asserts that SEPA violated the terms of the development agreement it entered into with NDSP when SEPA attempted to terminate the agreement for convenience on July 24, 2019.

NDSP remains ready, willing, and able to proceed with the planned soybean-crushing facility at the Spiritwood location, and intends to aggressively protect its rights so that NDSP is able to proceed to construct what would be the only farmer-owned soybean-crushing facility in North Dakota.

When completed, the NDSP soybean-crushing facility would support an estimated 60 jobs in the region and annually produce approximately 935,000 tons of soybean meal and 475 million pounds of soybean oil for sale into domestic and export animal feed and soybean oil markets, including (with respect to the soybean oil) as feedstock for planned or existing renewable diesel refinery facilities in North Dakota and throughout the western United States.

NDSP is a development stage company that intends to build and operate a soybean crush and oil refinery plant near Spiritwood, North Dakota.