Kemmerer City Administrator Brian Muir says ExxonMobil Corporation will have to delay construction on the LaBarge Carbon Capture Project due to the economic downturn as a result of COVID-19.

The project originally was to start in August, but now there are no plans on when it may start.

“We’re just kind of holding on to hear when that might happen,” Muir said.

He says Exxon will have to make the decision, but his best guess is that construction may not start until Spring 2021. He says that does mean though when the workers come they’ll be able to hire another police officer, expand the recreation center hours, etc.

“We’re actually going to be prepared I think,” Muir said. “To deal with whenever the visitors come.”

Some good news though is that Exxon and the community we’re able to give input on an application to the Wyoming Industrial Siting Council in a meeting held Thursday. Muir says that it seemed everyone was in favor of that application.

He also says the second part of the meeting was about communities applying for impact funding. He says this does not come from Exxon but it comes from tax revenue.

“We all submitted what we thought we would be impacted in,” Muir said. “The Industrial Siting Committee basically gave us 80% of what we all had asked for including us here in Kemmerer.”

He says this also applied for many other towns and hospitals as well in Lincoln County.