Lynn Helms, Director, North Dakota Mineral Resources interviewed by The Crude Life Content Correspondent Genneca Houser
After some brief chit chat about the large shoes that Lynn Helms, the Director of the North Dakota Mineral Resources, fills in North Dakota Oil and Gas, we dove right in to some good information. Lynn began by outlining the phenomenal growth in the industry within the last ten years – until 2020. He talks about measures taken to keep everything leveled out until recovery. Thankfully, it seems the recovery period has already begun. So although it’s not as big as it was, the outlook is great so far as predicting another ten years of wonderful growth.
“So, we think that we’re gonna’ get really back in business next year and that we can have another decade of phenomenal growth and so I put some challenges out there of some things that people have to do to make that happen.” – Lynn Helms
The Director has some challenges to pose to those in the oil and gas industry to promote the kind of growth that he’s looking at. There are three challenges; the first challenge is to more than double the well count in North Dakota by getting the wells that should be running, up and running. The second challenge is to provide what’s needed (propane, ethane, and etc.), store it, and then export it where it needs to go. From what Lynn Helms was saying, North Dakota is “all in” when it comes to building policy and legislation around how to help the goals. Then, the third challenge is to double the amount of oil recovered over the next ten years.
“We’re going to invest in research and field trials and figure out how to do what they call Enhanced Oil Recovery, which we think can double the amount of oil that we recover from the rock, and that’d be over the next ten years. Hopefully there’s more to come behind that.”
That, of course, led into a great discussion about Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) in North Dakota. There are several research projects on the use of Co2, according to Lynn Helms, and these projects could potentially lead the entire state to becoming carbon neutral. Specifically when we’re talking about using the captured carbon from the coal fired power plants and the Co2 being transported into the state for Enhanced Oil Recovery. There are multiple ways of accomplishing this being studied that carry few successes at this time, but still offer much hope. There has been some testing on re-injecting the Co2 directly back into the gas that comes out with the oil, and even some testing with different methods of nanotechnology. There’s even a research project using nanotechnology to treat the wells, and it’s currently in field trials.
“No, we’re pushing all the buttons – not just Co2.” – Lynn Helms, NDMR
Nanotechnology sounds like tech straight out of the future, but as it turns out they may have found a way to utilize it in such a way that would increase oil production in ways that no man is able. Apparently these little “bots” are so small, less than 20 nanometers in size, that they can fit into the pores of the shale where they will then release whatever they are carrying on command. What happens then? They deteriorate back into the earth through a fermentation process.
“They are made of stuff that degrades, so they completely degrade to nothing.”
There is a question about what would happen to the studies to advance carbon use if a climate tax were to be implemented. Lynn Helms believes the idea of a carbon tax is retro-active and says that North Dakota already has the right method to incentivize people to leave a smaller carbon footprint. He believes that if money is invested back into the positive programs it would lead people to make healthier decisions, rather than taxing people and limiting the capital for these programs to use at a critical time of growth.
“If you tax the money away from the company, how then do you get them to raise capital and invest in what they need to be doing 7, 8 years from now? … I think they can invest that money more wisely than our government can, and I work for the government, but the government rarely makes wise investments…”
Sometimes the government can do good things, though. Lynn Helms seemed pretty happy with the idea of having a government partner to help get industry investment to help the state get to carbon neutral. The Clean Sustainable Energy Authority was born as a way to get the research, funding, and policies done to put the Governor’s goal in action. Calling North Dakota a “geologic jackpot,” Lynn says the landscape gives a unique opportunity to store and utilize Co2 in a way that will make North Dakota a carbon negative state in time.
“It’s not easy, but our state has worked hard to put the tax and regulatory and investment policies in place to partner with our industry; to provide them the carrot and the assistance to get there.”
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