BISMARCK, N.D. – The North Dakota Tax Commissioner’s Office and Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) have released reports that forecast the economic potential of CO₂-enhanced oil recovery (CO₂-EOR) in North Dakota. These studies underscore the state’s strategic advantages in leveraging CO₂ utilization to drive sustainable energy production, economic growth and environmental benefits over the next 20 years.
Federal tax policy provides a $25 per ton advantage for permanent carbon storage over utilization. The reports reveal North Dakota’s current tax policies help narrow this gap to less than $10 per ton for CO₂-EOR, highlighting the state’s role as a leader in carbon management and advancement across the oil, lignite and agriculture sectors. However, the report continues to demonstrate the need for the federal government to enact tax parity for CO2-EOR projects to support the development of long-term CO2 markets.
“North Dakota continues to lead with innovative policies that support our industries and drive economic growth while addressing the challenges of a sustainable energy future,” said members of the Industrial Commission in a joint statement. “These reports demonstrate how CO₂-EOR can unlock billions of barrels of untapped oil, reduce emissions and provide billions in revenue – all while maintaining North Dakota’s reputation as a global energy leader.”
Key findings from the reports include:
Energy Potential: CO₂-EOR could unlock an additional 5 billion to 8 billion barrels of oil over the next 30–50 years, doubling the Bakken Formation’s production milestones.
Economic Impact: Statewide, CO₂-EOR could generate $2.9 billion to $9 billion in incremental revenue primarily from oil and gas production tax collected on incremental barrels produced.
Environmental Benefits: CO₂-EOR reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 20% during production, producing low-carbon-intensity oil that meets global market demands.
Strategic Positioning: With potential in-state CO₂ sources and tax policies that offset 64.5% of the federal tax credit disparity, North Dakota is well positioned to be a first mover into CO2-EOR from oil shale.
The report underscores the need for long-term CO₂ supply agreements and sustained policy incentives to fully realize the economic and production opportunities presented by CO₂-EOR.
I’m Kayla Ver Helst, sustainability officer at Bank of North Dakota, talking today about natural gas capture and utilization in North Dakota. Across the global energy landscape, natural gas accounts for about a quarter of electricity generation. Due to its ease of storage and transportability, natural gas is a solution for gas-fired power plants to respond swiftly to demand fluctuation caused by weather events.
In the context of energy transformation, natural gas serves as a transition fuel, emitting less carbon, and provides necessary backup for variable power sources like wind and solar. North Dakota has approximately two percent of the United States natural gas reserves, and in 2023, ranked 11th in natural gas gross production. In North Dakota, most natural gas is a byproduct of oil production. The state’s goal is to reduce flaring, economic loss, and environmental impact. With North Dakota’s gas capture rate currently around 95 percent, companies like Valence Natural Gas Solutions are transforming gas capture and utilization, pushing the state closer to achieve 100% efficiency.
So we’ve heard of things like emissions reductions, but now companies are getting more specific and subscribing to themes like zero routine flaring. So a large consortium of some of the largest oil and gas companies are now putting their collective efforts together, subscribing to this theme, which is zero routine flaring and basically saying regardless of regulation, regardless of mandate by the state, or by the jurisdiction we’re operating in, we’re going to get to a point where we don’t flare at all.
Our technology is the enabler of helping our customers try to get to that in-state. And we really believe it. With flaring being one of the biggest contributors to emissions in all of the oil and gas industry, we think it’s an enormous opportunity to use our technology to not only solve that problem but help our customers make money and create a beneficial use of a wasted resource.
We currently have two models of our flare gas capture facility. The first model was the first one we brought to market in 2021. That’s our standard flare gas capture plant that can process around 4 million standard cubic feet a day. What it is, is it’s a mobile gas plant, all developed on trailers with interconnecting piping and electrical so that it can be mobilized on the site very quickly and capture gas that would otherwise be stranded or flared in order to bring it to market in an alternative method other than pipeline, which is the traditional method for transporting natural gas. And then we have a smaller flare gas capture facility, that’s the micro gas capture plant that one can do about a million standard cubic feet a day, so about a quarter the size of the large plant that one came to market in 2023. What the facilities do is they bring in a raw natural gas stream, and they treat it and separate the gas into a clean residue gas stream, which is removed as CNG or compressed natural gas at very high pressures, and then the liquids that are a part of that gas are removed as a natural gas liquid product and trucked out.
Most people have seen the picture of the United States where at night, the satellite picture where it lights up the United States, and it looks like there’s a huge city right in western North Dakota. And it’s not. It was flares that these satellites were capturing. So North Dakota has been doing a good job over the last half a dozen years, give or take, at capturing that flare gas and not wasting it.
However, there’s challenges with terrain and topography and everything else that standard pipeline measures and stuff can’t solve. And Valence is able to go out, capture gas – mobiley, and process that and derive an economic benefit to the state, to the counties, municipalities, royalty owners, but then there are secondary things to that employment opportunities for people, just more people in your town that have an economic impact. Obviously, if you’re capturing gas that would otherwise be flared, there’s an environmental impact to that. So their impact is actually profound in, in many ways, not just economical.
When we first started, the Bakken was flaring a third of all the gas that was produced. At the time, that was about 300-350 million cubic feet a day. Fast forward to today. The state is capturing 95-96 percent of all the gas that’s produced. So we’re flaring a much smaller number, but that’s on a much higher amount of total gas being produced.
There’s customers that are calling for a cleaner, more cost effective fuel, which we can input natural gas. Our business is meant to bridge the two and the technology that we’ve been trying to develop over the last ten years and now have to the point where scalable goes right in the middle of going right out to those stranded sources, capturing it, cleaning it up enough for it to be useful, and then getting it to market in a cost-effective fashion. To that, we are an ESG solution for the customer.
I mentioned that 30% of their total emissions market, under which they’re under extreme amount of scrutiny right now, is flaring. At the same time, the value that’s being flared is enormous. Our sole purpose has been to try to create the technology to unlock the value of that gas, and at the same time, we’re reducing that total emissions bucket.
My favorite part with Valence, honestly, is just learning about this new technology. And they’re working really hard to be a solution. They can’t do that all on their own, obviously, but they’re able to do it in areas where conventional means just don’t work. Remote areas, very rugged areas where getting pipelines to them is very difficult. And so literally coming out into the field, seeing their processes, seeing how their equipment works and their ability to help solve these issues is always fun.
Valence Natural Gas Solutions is transforming North Dakota’s energy landscape. Visit STAND.nd.gov for more authentic stories of sustainability and transformation from people creating real change in North Dakota’s energy, agriculture, conservation and carbon management efforts.
