New Route and New Purpose for Midwest Pipeline

The proposed $9 billion multi-state carbon capture pipeline that has led to disagreements over its potential, fights over its path, and disputes about its future is now headed for a different journey. Summit Carbon Solution -- the Ames, Iowa-based company -- has a new plan to shorten its path, travel through a different combination of states, and no longer focus solely on carbon sequestration.

The project’s original path would link biofuels facilities through a pipeline that traveled through Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, and South Dakota and empty into an underground storage facility in North Dakota. However, the company has faced numerous legal challenges, including action by the South Dakota legislature that banned the use of eminent domain for a private company like Summit to force access onto an unwilling landowner for a pipeline.

Summit Carbon Solutions Changes Pipeline Route

The company has adjusted its plans so that its pipeline would eventually empty in Wyoming instead of North Dakota. Summit Carbon Solutions would eliminate eight Iowa counties and decrease presence in four others to shorten its path by 200 miles. That also avoids necessitating deals – or using eminent domain that an Iowa entity previously granted the company – with 400 property owners. 

“We believe this is the right step for the project and the right step for the communities counting on new opportunities,” said Summit Carbon Solutions CEO Joe Griffin said in a statement. 

RELATED: American Farmland Owner pointed to this significant decision by South Dakota’s governor in 2025 that led to changes for the carbon sequestration pipeline project.

Griffin took over as CEO in 2025 and has spent decades as a gas and pipeline executive.

Griffin’s statement also said, “Agriculture is facing real economic pressure right now. Farmers and ethanol producers need access to new markets and long-term growth opportunities, and there is urgency to getting infrastructure like this moving forward.”

Pipeline critics contend that Summit Carbon Solutions’ newest change in plans reflects growing opposition to the project.

"Summit's project has been on shaky ground for a long time.  Summit has been flailing around to try to keep their project viable, and now it looks like it's falling apart."  Said Wally Taylor, Sierra Club Iowa Chapter Attorney.

Summit Carbon Solutions’ Pipeline Project

The project had aimed to capture carbon dioxide emissions from dozens of ethanol plants, turn that gas into a pressurized liquid, and then store it underground. Developers believe that expands opportunities for biofuels producers to market ethanol as a low carbon energy source. That could open possibilities for producers at a time of increased interest in sustainable aviation and marine fuels and trade uncertainty.

It could also allow Summit Carbon Solutions to become eligible for lucrative federal tax credits…if the Trump administration and allies in the Republican-led Congress maintain them.

Those credits could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars to Summit Carbon Solutions and a key piece of the overall revenue projections.  

Summit Carbon Solutions’ New Pipeline Plans

The company’s new plan would allow it to also take advantage of the new proposed pipeline path through Wyoming and restructure its original purpose to include enhanced oil recovery. The process uses carbon dioxide to extract additional oil from Wyoming wells.

The new developments raised questions about the company’s future intentions for Minnesota, North Dakota, and South Dakota.

But Summit Carbon Solutions responded to an inquiry from the North Dakota Monitor and said that the company is not giving up on including those states in its overall project.

“North Dakota, South Dakota, and Minnesota remain important for our company,” the statement said. “While we are currently prioritizing a westward route through Nebraska to Wyoming, our permitted pipeline and sequestration assets in North Dakota, our South Dakota partners and easements, along with our Minnesota permit, provide valuable optionality for future phases. We remain committed to building systems that support economic growth and long-term U.S. energy production.”

Some project supporters expressed disappointment about the uncertainty of the pipeline project.

“Seems like a tremendous lost opportunity for North Dakota,” Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, told the North Dakota Monitor. “Projects that help ag and energy and create revenue streams for landowners are rare.”

But a pipeline critic said not to count out Summit Carbon Solutions’ ability to include its original states in the final project.

Derrick Braaten, a Bismarck attorney representing North Dakota landowners in lawsuits against Summit Carbon Solutions, told the North Dakota Monitor, “I think that it’s possible they’re going to continue to fight and see if they can win these fights on the constitutional issues. There’s at least a chance that there’s a long game where they’re still going to try and develop the current route (through North Dakota).”

RELATED: North Dakota’s secretary of agriculture told American Farmland Owner what would be critical for that state’s agricultural future.