North Dakota Chases A Second Bakken Boom Through Enhanced Recovery

A State Racing Against The Clock

Roughly 85% of the oil sitting inside North Dakota's Bakken and Three Forks formations has never been pumped to the surface. That single statistic explains why the state's leaders are moving with unusual urgency right now.

North Dakota's elected officials want to put Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) technology to work across the Bakken while a friendly federal posture lasts. The Trump administration has thrown open large stretches of federal land and offshore acreage to oil and gas activity, unwinding Biden-era conservation measures and requiring more frequent quarterly lease auctions. Plans have also surfaced to push drilling into offshore zones that were previously off-limits, among them the federal waters near California, Florida, and Alaska.

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The catch? The opening may not stay open for long.

"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 told attendees at a major oil gathering 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."

Why The Easy Oil Is Running Out

EOR is a tertiary extraction method built for mature reservoirs that can no longer give up their crude through natural pressure or through water and gas flooding. It leans on advanced techniques that change the oil's physical traits, such as its viscosity and density, so the trapped crude can finally move through the rock.

The need is real. The Bakken Formation has yielded more than 5 billion barrels since the U.S. Shale Revolution kicked off in 2007, and the most productive sweet spots are draining fast. As producers chase tougher reserves, climbing equipment and labor bills have pushed the region's average drilling breakeven toward $60 per barrel, well above the leaner economics of the Permian Basin.

Three Paths To Trapped Crude

Operators have three broad EOR families to choose from, each suited to different geology:

• Thermal Recovery targets heavy, sticky crude. Steam is injected for weeks, the well is shut in so the rock soaks up heat, then the thinned oil is pumped back out. Continuous steam flooding does the same on a larger scale. It works best in shallow to moderate reservoirs (typically under 5,000 feet) holding high-porosity sands and heavy oils below 20 API gravity.
• Gas Injection is quietly taking over. Carbon dioxide, nitrogen, or natural gas is forced into the reservoir, dissolving into the oil to cut viscosity and hold pressure. It suits lighter oils in deep formations, and it already accounts for roughly 60% of all EOR projects across the United States.
• Chemical Injection uses long-chain polymers to thicken injected water for a cleaner sweep, plus surfactants and alkaline agents that loosen oil droplets clinging to rock surfaces.

  Big Oil Is Already Building The Pipes

  Some majors have a head start. Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) runs 34 CO2 EOR projects and thousands of injection wells in the Permian, capturing carbon from industrial sites like ethanol plants and pairing it with Direct Air Capture to market what it calls "net-zero oil." Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) operates the LaBarge/Shute Creek facility in Wyoming, one of the planet's largest man-made carbon capture operations, piping CO2 to oil fields across the Rockies and Great Plains.

  Exxon strengthened that position by buying Denbury in 2023, absorbing a CO2-focused operator that manages a sprawling pipeline network stretching more than 1,300 miles between Gulf Coast and Rocky Mountain CO2 sources and depleted fields.

  Bakken producers have not yet settled on which method delivers the best return, and executives caution that EOR carries plenty of unknowns. The winner, they expect, will be decided by the spreadsheet.

  "Economics are always going to rule the day," said Pam Heatherington, general manager of ExxonMobil's Americas division and CEO of Denbury, the subsidiary focused on CO2 transport and storage.

  What Smart Money Is Watching

  For traders, this is less a single catalyst and more a slow-burn structural story. A successful EOR rollout would extend Bakken output for years, reinforcing U.S. crude supply and capping some of the upside in WTI over the medium term. The $60 breakeven matters here. If oil drifts well below that mark, EOR economics in North Dakota wobble, and the "second boom" thesis cools quickly.

  Watch a handful of connected instruments. WTI and Brent set the profitability ceiling for any new project. OXY and XOM give equity exposure to the CCUS-for-EOR theme, while the broader energy sector benefits if carbon-capture infrastructure scales. USD/CAD can react to North American supply shifts given Canada's heavy-oil weight.

  The opportunity is genuine, yet so is the execution risk. Policy windows close, costs rise, and no single EOR method has proven itself across Bakken geology. The smart read is to treat this as an emerging trend to monitor, not a confirmed boom to chase.