VERMILLION, S.D. – Gov. Mike Rounds has hunted and golfed with the CEO of the company everyone from Sioux City to Sioux Falls wants to know about.
But Rounds had little to say about Hyperion Resources and its CEO, Albert Huddleston, except that Huddleston is an "easy-going guy" and "low profile."
Rounds spoke June 14 to students attending the American Indian Journalism Institute at the Al Neuharth Media Center in Vermillion. Most of the governor’s news conference concerned the previous day’s announcement that the town of Elk Point is a finalist for an oil refinery [1] that will generate 400,000 barrels a day and as many as 1,800 jobs. The construction of the refinery is likely to cost at least $8 billion.
Rounds talked mostly about how Hyperion’s refinery would be friendlier to the environment than others, but he had little else to say about Hyperion and suggested students turn to the Internet.
So we did.
We found tidbits of information about both Hyperion and Albert Huddleston.
The privately operated Hyperion, founded in 1990, is an oil-and-gas company in Dallas. Albert Huddleston is the son-in-law of Bunker Hunt, son of Hunt Oil Company founder, H.L. Hunt.
According to Manta, a Web site that gleans information about businesses from publishers such as Dun & Bradstreet and Newstex, Hyperion is located at 5910 N. Central Expressway in Dallas. Manta estimates that Hyperion has 60 employees and $12.3 million in annual sales. However, phone calls to the company yielded no one willing to confirm or deny the sales figure.
- According to reports on the Web site CampaignMoney.com [2], Huddleston, who is known for his major contributions to the Republican Party, donated $93,500 to the party in 2006. He made political contributions of $81,000 in 2004 and $55,000 in 2002, most of which went to the Republican Party.
- In April, as a way to "do something good to improve relations between the two countries," the United States and Iraq, Huddleston spent more than $100,000 [3] to help bring a 14-and-under Iraqi soccer team into the country, according to a story originally published in The Dallas Morning News. The team competed in the Dallas Cup, an internationally recognized soccer tournament. For the past two years, Hyperion has helped train Iraqi oil workers.
- Huddleston supported the Swift Boat Vets [4] and POWS for Truth, an organization that campaigned in 2004 against presidential candidate John Kerry, a Democrat. Huddleston made a $100,000 contribution to the organization.
- Huddleston and his daughter Caroline Huddleston, assistant for arrangements for the Office of Laura Bush, attended a state dinner [5], which honored the nation’s governors in February.
- He is a state corporate member of the Corporate Wetlands Restoration Partnership [6], a United States government organization created by former president George H.W. Bush in 1991, to address environmental issues along coastlines.
- Elk Point, S.D., is one of several potential sites in the Midwest for the oil refinery, which will use advanced technology to produce low-sulfur gas and diesel fuel. The other locations have not been identified, [7] according to The Wall Street Journal.
Rounds said Huddleston wants his refinery to be a model for other corporations in the nation and world.
Huddleston is trying to show that the "future of energy production is in America and that it will be environmentally safe," Rounds said.
Hyperion officials will likely make a formal announcement within three to six months, Rounds said, as to whether Elk Point is the company’s preferred site.