Hoeven: “Crack the Code 2.0” Phase One to Receive $157 Million in Federal, State & Private Funding

Hoeven: "Crack the Code 2.0" Phase One to Receive $157 Million in Federal, State & Private Funding

EERC Also Set to Receive $25 Million After Senator Worked to Restore DOE Cooperative Agreement

GRAND FORKS, N.D. - Senator John Hoeven today announced that funding for phase one of his Crack the Code 2.0 initiative will total $157 million:

• $76 million in private investment and $45.1 million in state funding are already in place, and $36 million in federal funding is on track to come through the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), subject to a 30-day Congressional review period and final review by the Office of Management and Budget (OMB).
  • Hoeven has been working with U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Secretary Chris Wright and his team at DOE to finalize the federal funding award.
• Hoeven is spearheading the initiative to partner the state's coal and oil industries, with the goal of doubling both oil recovery in the Bakken and the life of North Dakota's coal-fired power plants.
• The phase one funding will be used to develop large-scale pilot projects to advance the technical and commercial viability of enhanced oil recovery (EOR) in the Bakken.
• In addition, the University of North Dakota (UND) Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) is set to receive $25 million over five years through the renewal of its cooperative agreement with DOE.
  • The EERC cooperative agreement has been in place since 1983, when the organization was de-federalized and spun off from DOE.
  • The Biden administration failed to renew the agreement, and Hoeven has been working with the Trump administration to restore the five-year funding agreement.

Crack the Code 2.0 is further supported by a policy Hoeven worked to secure in the One Big Beautiful Bill (OB3), also known as the Working Families Tax Cut Act, to properly align the 45Q tax credit to incentivize the use of CO2 for EOR. Doing so supports coal producers' continued operations by providing access to a new revenue stream through selling CO2 to oil producers, while providing a strong, long-term incentive for EOR, making it the clear, commercially-viable choice to improve oil recovery in the Bakken.

"The $157 million in phase one funding for Crack the Code 2.0 will enable the EERC and its partners to develop large-scale pilot projects to prove CO2 EOR works in unconventional fields like the Bakken. This is not only important for North Dakota, which will be able to remain competitive in the global economy by producing more oil and at a lower cost, but it has national ramifications benefitting U.S. energy security as we roll out this technology to other oil plays," said Hoeven. "Nobody is better positioned to do this than North Dakota. We have the resources, the geology, the infrastructure, the industry partners and the research capabilities right here at the EERC. EOR has the potential to unlock at least 5 billion more barrels of oil from the Bakken, while creating a new revenue stream for our coal-fired power plants that will help keep these essential baseload power facilities operating over the long-term."

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