Magic Maps: Currently Off-Line

NOTE: MagicMaps is currently off-line and may/may not be back. In addition to NDIC GIS maps server, North Dakota Rigs Map is also available. 

Mini-Bakken in Montana's Heath Formation?

One of the problems with a "Bakken blog" there is absolutely so much information posted, one cannot easily keep track of everything.

The "Data Links" page (a tab at the top of the blog) has scores of great links. Back in December, I mentioned a great application for finding any well or any rig in the Bakken:

• Magic Maps

In addition, there is a way to combine this application with Google Earth:

• Magic Maps and Google Earth

Currently Magic Maps maps the Bakken wells and rigs. The developer says that in the near future he will be adding Montana wells to the application. If everything goes as planned, the Montana database should be on-line around April 1, 2012. 

• See comments for updates and details.

With indications that oil activity is increasing in Montana, this is great news. There are three areas to be aware of in Montana.

We already know about the North Dakota Bakken on the Montana side of the state line.

In addition, there is the Alberta Bakken in north-central Montana.

Earlier today, a reader mentioned to me that Halliburton has acquired space in/near Lewistown, Montana, and there are reports that drillers will soon be targeting the Heath formation somewhere between Lewistown and Jordan, Montana. The story was covered in the Missoulian back on February 5, 2012.

Talk of a "mini Bakken" beneath this windswept plain has the 350 people of Jordan talking big.

"My daughter thinks we're going to be the next Williston," said Janet Sherer. "I hope not. I'm not ready for that."

Williston, the western North Dakota community at the heart of the Bakken oil boom, has become the town to which everyone points when discussing a potential central Montana oil play. The North Dakota community was a quiet farm town until petroleum engineers cracked the combination to oil trapped in a shale formation thousands of feet below. The once seemingly played-out region now rivals Alaska's oil production. Locals fortunate enough to have coveted mineral rights are awash in royalties. The black gold rush is on.

Central Montanans from Lewistown to Jordan also have a seemingly played-out oil field. "The Heath" as it's called in these parts, is a shale formation 250 miles wide from east to west and 150 miles from north to south.

Completely unrelated to these three oil plays, there is a huge natural gas industry in Montana; I do not know if these wells will be in the Magic Maps database.