Associated Press

Dakota Gasification Co. has paid the U.S. Energy Department a $39.2 million share of its revenues from synthetic gas manufactured at the Great Plains Synfuels Plant near Beulah, the company says.

Basin Electric Power Cooperative bought the synfuels plant from the Energy Department in October 1988. The newly formed Dakota Gas subsidiary paid $85 million, agreed to forgo some tax breaks and consented to a revenue-sharing arrangement with the federal agency through 2009, if natural gas prices were high enough and other economic conditions were met.

The Energy Department had taken over the project in August 1985, after a group of five companies that built the plant defaulted on $1.5 billion in federally guaranteed loans. The plant makes synthetic gas from lignite.

Ron Harper, Basin's chief executive, said the $39.2 million payment was the seventh one made to the Energy Department. The payments have totaled more than $285 million, he said.