CO2 Storage and the Future of Oil

| 9/24/2012
Geologists predict most Bakken oil wells will produce for 20 to 30 years but that could be extended with enhanced oil recovery efforts. One of those methods would be to use carbon dioxide. But if companies start using enhanced oil recovery techniques, the regulating body could change from the state to the EPA.

That`s why the Industrial Commission is applying for primacy, to allow the state to keep control during an enhanced oil recovery project using CO2.

Lynn Helms with the Department of Mineral Resources said, "So we had the framework in place to do this in a way that the lignite industry, the oil industry and all of us agreed on the rules going forward. No other state has that framework in place. So we were really the logical choice. And then as we rose to number two in crude oil production it even seemed more logical."

North Dakota is the first state to request primacy.

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