North Dakota Chases A Second Bakken Boom Through Enhanced Recovery

By Alex Kimani – OilPrice.com

North Dakota’s elected officials are pushing hard to deploy Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technologies to boost oil production in the Bakken before Donald Trump’s tenure as president expires. The Trump administration has significantly opened up federal lands and offshore waters for oil and gas drilling, rolling back Biden-era conservation rules to mandate more quarterly lease sales. And proposals have been advanced to expand offshore drilling to areas previously restricted, including the federal waters off the coasts of California, Florida and Alaska. But the clock is ticking on these opportunities. “We have a tremendous opportunity in the next two years, because we have an administration that understands this stuff. We have to get them to mobilize a little faster,” Gov. Kelly Armstrong said during a prominent oil conference in May. “Time is the enemy, but they understand this, and so we have gone from headwinds to tailwinds. We’ve only tapped 15% of the Bakken and Three Forks. The other 85% is still trapped in the rock. If we can create the policy and the incentives, and you all can unlock even another 15% with EOR, that’s an entirely new boom,” Armstrong added.