Hoeven Working to Provide Up to $50 Million in Federal Funding for Crack the Code 2.0 Initiative

Senator Marks $45.1 Million in State Funding Approved for EOR Project by Industrial Commission

BISMARCK, N.D. - Senator John Hoeven today issued the following statement commending the North Dakota Industrial Commission for approving $45.1 million to advance the implementation of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Bakken. The state funding supports Hoeven's Crack the Code 2.0 initiative, which seeks to partner North Dakota's oil and coal industries to double both the ultimate oil recovery in the Bakken and the operational life of the state's coal-fired power plants. To move this priority forward, Hoeven:

• Is working as a member of the Senate Energy and Water Appropriations Committee to secure up to $50 million from the federal government for the project, having provided $12 million for the effort to date.
  • The initial $12 million award enabled the Energy and Environmental Research Center (EERC) and Chord Energy to conduct 18 months of field and laboratory research to study the viability of injecting CO2 and natural gas liquids into unconventional oil reservoirs for the purposes of enhanced oil recovery.
  • Hoeven has since secured commitments from Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Assistant Secretary of Fossil Energy Kyle Haustveit to collaborate with North Dakota on this effort and increase federal support from the Department of Energy (DOE).
  • The federal and state funding will be used to leverage $76 million in private investment, bringing the total project funding to approximately $171 million.
• Worked to ensure the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3) properly aligned the 45Q tax credit to incentivize the use of CO2 for EOR. Doing so:
  • Provides a strong, long-term incentive for EOR, making it the clear, commercially-viable choice to improve oil recovery in the Bakken.
  • Establishes an additional revenue stream for coal producers to extend the life of coal power plants and continue providing a critical source of baseload power.

"EOR is a longtime proven technology. North Dakota demonstrates that every day through the Dakota Gasification Company, which has been providing CO2 to the Weyburn Field in Canada for EOR for 25 years. Now through Crack the Code 2.0, we're working to bring this technique to the Bakken to benefit both our oil and coal industries, and today's funding from the North Dakota Industrial Commission is an important step in that effort," said Hoeven. "The back-end of this project is already taken care of, as the corrections we made to tax incentives in the One Big Beautiful Bill provide a solid, long-term foundation for using EOR in the Bakken. In addition, we've already provided $12 million in federal research funding for EERC and Chord Energy to get this project going on the front-end. We're working to bring that number up to $50 million to make this initiative a reality, and I look forward to continuing my efforts with Energy Secretary Wright and his team at DOE to do just that."

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