"This is the final, final payment," said Hill, who likened it to a mortgage-burning party. "We're good to go. We're done."
....Energy Department officials have said the default on the $1.5 billion loan likely was the largest in the agency's history. John Panek, an Energy Department analyst who has been monitoring the plant's operations for more than 20 years, was out of the office and did not return telephone calls to The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Hill said revenues from Great Plains' natural gas sales totaled $264.7 million last year. The plant has about 700 employees.
"It came real close to being a write-off for the federal government," Hill said. "We took a plant that at one time was considered a white elephant and turned it around. Had the plant not been operating, 700 jobs would have been yanked out of the economy."
The company said is the nation's only commercial scale plant producing natural gas from lignite.
The gasification process at Great Plains involves using high-pressure steam and air to break down the low-grade coal - about 18,000 tons daily - to make natural gas that is piped to Iowa, where it is distributed to markets in the eastern and southeastern United States.
Hill said more than half of carbon dioxide that is generated from the plant is captured and piped to oil fields in southern Saskatchewan. There, it's pumped underground to force oil to the surface.
