St. Paul -- DG Fuels, a sustainable aviation fuel company based in Washington D.C., has picked Moorhead for the site of a $5 billion production facility that plans to produce low-carbon aviation fuel to serve the Great Lakes region.

Derrick LaPoint, president and CEO of Downtown Moorhead Inc., said local officials began communicating with DG Fuels more than a year ago, when the company put out the word it was looking for a place to locate its production plant.

LaPoint said Moorhead let the company know it had hundreds of city-owned acres available in its newest industrial park and the city has now signed a letter of intent with DG Fuels for the possible purchase of city land for the project.

While no deal for the land has been finalized, LaPoint said local officials are excited to work with the group on the possibility of a project, adding: "There is a long road ahead with a project of this size."

According to a news release on the DG Fuels website:

The proposed facility will produce about 193 million gallons of low-carbon aviation fuel annually in cooperation with partners that include the state of Minnesota, which recently created a special tax credit for sustainable aviation fuel projects, as well as an entity called the Minnesota SAF Hub, which was created by the Minneapolis Saint Paul Economic Development Partnership, also known as the GREATER MSP Partnership.

The plant, which is expected to cost $5 billion and create 650 local jobs, could start production by 2030, according to the DG Fuels news release.

The manufacturing process employed by DG Fuels uses biomass, including the materials left in the field after corn harvest and timber waste, to produce near-zero carbon fuel.

LaPoint said one thing that helped draw DG Fuels' attention to the Moorhead area was the potential availability of things like sugar beet pulp.

Michael C. Darcy, chief executive officer of DG Fuels, said in the company's news release that DG Fuels' manufacturing process "differs from other systems by having little or no environmental emissions either to the atmosphere or waters, while at the same time providing significant economic value to the agricultural communities and farmers that we partner with."

Moorhead Mayor Shelly Carlson said that adding value to the region's agricultural economy "is a top priority and fits perfectly with Moorhead's development strategy."

Peter Frosch, president and CEO of the GREATER MSP Partnership, is quoted in the news release as describing the Minnesota SAF Hub as a bold, public-private partnership focused on building the world's first industrial-scale sustainable aviation fuel economy in Minnesota.

"Our initial milestone is to deliver 100 million gallons of sustainable aviation fuel to MSP International Airport by 2030," Frosch said.

LaPoint said the Moorhead tract of land DG Fuels is interested in includes several hundred acres of land that extend from Moorhead's new industrial park to the Moorhead Municipal Airport.

He said one thing that drew DG Fuels' attention to Moorhead was that the city had the largest tract of shovel-ready land in Minnesota that met the company's need.

"By no means is this a done deal, but we're excited to explore the opportunity and potential project that could exist within our community," LaPoint said.

"Because this project is so large, these things don't happen overnight. We have to get into the conversation about what their needs are," LaPoint said, referring to DG Fuels.

He said other factors and players include the state and federal governments.

"There are a lot of factors that go beyond what we can do locally, but we stand ready to have those conversations," LaPoint said.

Forum reporter Ingrid Harbo contributed to this report.