North Dakota leaders unveil enhanced oil recovery plan for Bakken

BISMARCK, N.D. (KFYR) – North Dakota leaders unveiled an initiative aimed at getting more oil out of the Bakken, using enhanced oil recovery and CO₂.

Senator John Hoeven said the effort is getting a boost from $36 million from the Department of Energy for “Crack the Code 2.0,” a $157 million initiative with state and industry funding.

Hoeven said the goal is to use CO₂ for enhanced oil recovery, calling it “an important, usable, valuable commodity” and saying, “We’re linking our coal plants with our oil and gas producing companies to do it.”

Funding will be used to develop technology to make enhanced oil recovery profitable and viable, and then implement it in North Dakota oil fields in a number of pilot projects.

Hoeven said current recovery rates in the Bakken are limited.

“We’re only producing about 10 to 12% of the oil out of that shale,” he said, “But with EOR, advanced oil recovery techniques, we can double it. We can take it from 10 to 12% up to 25% or better.”

Hoeven said the effort is also tied to electricity demand, saying North Dakota will “produce more electricity for a company that wants to do AI, that wants to do data centers, needs more and more electricity,” and that “it isn’t just about oil and gas.”

North Dakota Petroleum Council President Ron Ness said the pilot projects are expected to start soon.

“We hope to see these pilots putting their technologies into the ground sometime late this year, first quarter of next year,” said Ness.

“So I would expect by this time next year, we’re going to maybe potentially begin to see what are some of the results early on,” Ness added. “And again, this is going to take multiple, multiple swings at this thing. It’s not going to just happen. If it was easy, we’d be doing it. Nobody’s done it anywhere in the world. This is where we’re going to crack the code.”