Q&A With CEO of the EERC: Making North Dakota a Testbed for Energy Innovation

_ In Grand Forks, North Dakota, engineers, geologists, and other specialists at the Energy & Environmental Research Center (EERC) are among those helping the state maintain its position as a leading US energy producer. North Dakota currently produces about 1.1 million B/D, about 97% of which comes from the Bakken Shale, ranking the state third nationally behind Texas and New Mexico. Much of the EERC’s research is focused on sustaining that output by extending the Bakken’s productive life. To do that the center’s researchers are developing new recovery methods while improving how produced gas, water, and emissions are managed across the maturing play. The EERC, part of the University of North Dakota, is led by CEO Charles Gorecki, a petroleum engineer who joined the organization in 2007. Before assuming his current role, he directed the EERC’s subsurface research and development programs, leading the center’s work on conventional and unconventional reservoirs and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) projects. In this conversation with JPT, Gorecki discusses how the EERC is working to recover more oil from existing wells, reduce methane emissions with new technology, and test advanced carbon capture systems. He also reflects on how North Dakota’s regulatory framework and practical approach have helped turn the state into a hub for collaboration, including with international partners in Japan and South Korea. Editor’s note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity. JPT: Thanks for talking to us. Can you give us a picture of the work that the EERC is doing and how it supports North Dakota’s role as a leading oil producer in the US? Gorecki: The 30,000-ft view is that we’re a non-teaching branch of the University of North Dakota with a vision to lead the world in developing solutions to energy and environmental challenges. This gigantic goal, and how that relates to something like the Bakken, involves us listening to our industry partners to find out what challenges that they’re having. We work with them to figure it out and solve those things whether it’s about trying to produce a lower cost barrel of oil, reduce emissions, or maximize the resource that we’ve already found with existing wells. We have engineers and scientists of all different types, but we’re problem solvers at heart, and we work with industry to solve those big challenges. That’s what we do. Some of the biggest priorities we have center around the fact that we have found a lot of unconventional oil in North Dakota but we’re only getting a tiny fraction of it out of the ground. A 10% recovery factor is, in my mind, very much on the high side. What we recover is probably in single-digit percentages and with current technology we will have to leave most of it behind. So, the EERC is trying to develop the new technologies that will help us get that next barrel out of the ground. EOR is among the big items we are focused on but so are refracturing and artificial lift technology. We’re also looking at how to better manage the associated gas and produced water that comes up with the oil. How can we handle that more effectively, so it doesn’t limit production? We’re also studying infill drilling, parent-child well relationships, and new ways to recover those next barrels along with our partners.