If you missed the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference last month in Bismark, N.D., you might not know that the Day 2 topic, “Bakken 2.0: Crack the Code,” sizzled like bacon in a hot skillet. Crack the Code is a multi-layered, $157 million research effort led by Sen. John Hoeven to double oil recovery in the Bakken and extend the life of coal-fired power plants in N.D., using captured CO2 for Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR). Meanwhile, Houston-based Chord Energy, the Williston’s largest operator with 1.3 million acres, is betting big on another kind of enhanced recovery. This one, a new technology to unlock Bakken shale rock impossible to reach by traditional methods.

Reese Energy Consulting today is following the latest from Chord Energy, which knows well there’s a heckuva lot more oil to be had in these shale reservoirs keeping more than 80% of it trapped in tight rock. While some experts suggest that injecting captured CO2 could unlock at least 5 billion additional barrels in the Bakken, the massive amounts of CO2 and infrastructure required to transport it is a mountain that could take years to climb.

Chord is playing its cards on a different—maybe quicker—deployment of production enhancement with an investment in a biotech startup. That would be Houston-based MaverickX and its promising PetroX Boost, an oil recovery solution that uses enzyme-based chemistry to break down the silicate clays that trap hydrocarbons in tight formations. According to Hart Energy, the brainiacs behind this technology explain that the enzyme is produced with bacteria strong enough to break rocks.