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Award: Gas plant
Value: 4 billion dollar project
Location: Williams County, North Dakota
Customer: Electric energy cooperative of the basin
After a year-long search for a builder, a utility company in Bismarck, North Dakota has tapped PCL Construction to build its new natural gas generating facility.
The almost 4 billion dollar plantcalled the Bison Generation Station, will produce up to 1,490 megawatts, according to a Basin Electric Power Cooperative project fact sheet. Once completed, the plant will help you find yourself growth of electric load in the North Dakota region, largely due to demands from industrial work, manufacturing, data processing, residential customers and small businesses, according to the utility.
“For a general contractor on a project of this size, it’s very much a grade-base selection, which the team has been working on for almost all of 2025,” Chris Bauer, Basin Electric’s structural engineering supervisor, said in a video announcement from the selection of the general contractor. “We started with a broad network of potential candidates, with a fairly simple prequalification process that gave us key details to evaluate these potential project partners.”
PCL Construction, an Edmonton, Alberta-based construction company with US headquarters in Denver, plans to do just that start construction activity this spring, according to a Dec. 18 press release. Winter conditions typically limit on-site work in northwestern North Dakota, according to Basin.
Until then, PCL will draw up a mobilization plan and finalize agreements with suppliers and subcontractors. Kansas City, Mo.-based Burns & McDonnell, the project’s engineering partner, is working closely with PCL to align construction packages with the contractor’s schedule. This includes coordinating major equipment suppliers as manufacturing and delivery timelines advance, according to the release.
The project includes the construction of two units of approximately 745 megawatts. This combined cycle power plant will ultimately be one of the largest electric generation projects in the cooperative’s history, according to the Basin Electric Power Cooperative press release.
Basin Electric expects the first units to come online in early 2029 and the second unit about a year later in 2030.
