Drilling Down in BEXP's Rough Rider Prospect

Someone asked me if I could "drill down" (pardon the pun) into the pixels to better clarify BEXP acreage in its so-called "Rough Rider" prospect.

According to its most recent presentation, dated April 20, 2010, BEXP has divided its Bakken acreage into three prospects: a) eastern Montana; b) Rough Rider; and, Ross/Parshall.

The eastern Montana prospect has 83,500 net acres and is, of course in eastern Montana, directly west of Williston. Because it's in Montana I don't follow it.

The Ross/Parshall prospect is 99,200 net acres and is, of course in the Ross and Parshall fields in Mountrail County.

The Rough Rider prospect is in Williams County with Williston at its center, with about 60% of its Rough Rider acreage north of the river and 40% of its Rough Rider acreage south of the river. The Rough Rider prospect has 120,100 net acres.

There are maybe as many as 30 defined oil fields in the Rough Rider prospect; most of them are very small, and not well known.  The larger ones (and some are not very large) include, north of the river: Bull Butte, East Fork, Squires, Stony Creek, Painted Woods, Rosebud, Hebron and Lake Trenton. South of the river, the fields include Briar Creek, Glass Bluff and Elk.

Squires and Painted Woods are the most active. It's hard to believe but there are five (5) rigs on site in the Squires field and two (2) rigs on site in the Painted Woods field, both in the Rough Rider prospect (of course). In addition to these seven (7) rigs, there are several wells on the confidential list.

Hebron is one of the smaller fields, only eight (8) full sections, and "owned" by CLR. CLR has four (4) wells on the confidential list in the Hebron. Eight sections and four wells; that tells you how active this area is.

Just for the fun of it, I tried drilling down into the pixels on slide 18 of BEXP's most recent presentation to see which sections are leased by BEXP. Even zooming in, it is very difficult and there may be better sources, but using their map and zooming in, this is my first draft. If anyone notices obvious errors, please let me know so I might improve the data.

BEXP has colored in whole sections in red. Whether or not BEXP has all the acres in these sections or not, I do not know.  In addition, BEXP has some "red" sections in the far north of the Rough Rider prospect that I have not included below. Those would be in townships 157-102, 158-102, 159-102, and 159-101. I could be wrong on these but I think those are correct. BEXP also has "red" areas that make up less than a section in a small number of areas and I have not included those in the following stats:

T156N-R103W: leases the southern half and bits and pieces of the north half; the south half includes sections 19 - 36 except for 34.

T156N-R102W: BEXP acres are sections 17, 18, 19, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31,32, and 33.

T156N-R101W: no BEXP acreage.

T156N-R100W: BEXP acres are sections 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, and 36.

T155N-R103W: BEXP has all except sections 7, 14, 18, 19, 20, 23, 35, and 36. A star obstructs.

T155N-R102W: BEXP has only sections 6, 8, 9, 16, 17, and 18.

T155N-R101W: BEXP has only sections 14, 15, 18, 19, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 33, 34, and 35.

T155N-R100W: BEXP has only sections 25, 28, 31, and 36.

T154N-R103W: BEXP has about half, but not sections 2- 10, 13, 15, 17, and 18.

T154N-R102W: BEXP has all except sections 7, 14, 18, 19, 20, 23, 30, 35, and 36. A star obstructs.  BEXP's very good Olson and Brad Olson wells were in sections 9 and 10 in this township.

T154N-R101W: BEXP has all except sections 2, 11, 12, 13, and 24.

T154N-R100W: BEXP has all except sections 1, 2, 3, 21, 25, 26, 27, 31, 32, and 36.

T153N-R103W: BEXP has sections 1 - 6, 9, 10, 14, 21, and 22.

T153N-R102W: BEXP has sections 1, 11, 12, 36. Most of this section is under water.

T153N-R101W: no BEXP acreage.

T153N-R100W: BEXP has sections 1 - 4, and 9 - 11.

T152N-R104W: BEXP has only sections 29, 30, 31, and 32.

T152N-R103W: no BEXP acreage.

T152N-R102W: BEXP has only sections 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.

T152N-R101W: BEXP has all sections except 1 - 10, 15, 16, 18, 35, and 36.

T152N-R100W: no BEXP acreage.

T151N-R104W: BEXP has only sections 5, 6, 7, 8, 14, 15, 22, and 23.

T151N-R103W: BEXP has one section 18.

T151N-R102W: BEXP has all except sections 1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 30, 31, and 36.

T151N-R101W: A star obstructs but I see BEXP has sections 2, 3, 4, 13, and 35.

T151N-R100W: BEXP has section 6, 7, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 26, 27, 29, 33, 34, 35.

T148N-R101W: BEXP has sections 3 and 11.

When I total all these sections up, I get slightly more than 280 sections which is more than 180,000 acres, which means a) I have counted wrong; b) I misread some of the red squares on BEXP's map; or, c) although the entire section is colored red, BEXP may not have the entire section. My gut feeling is the latter.