Saturday Morning -- August 12, 2017; $10,000 Bonus For Bakken Mineral Acre?

Active rigs:

	8/12/2017	08/12/2016	08/12/2015	08/12/2014	08/12/2013
Active Rigs	57	33	72	194	184

ND State lease auction, August, 2017: results have been released. I will post summary later. This one was certainly an outlier:

• OG1700657, Williams County: 154-101-23, Lot 10, BK1 of Ledosquet addition to the city of Williston, Lynx Oil Company; 0.16 acre (no typo); $10,030 / acre (no typo). 
• 0.16 * $10,000 = $1,600 for the parcel?
• 0.16 acre. Imagine how many similarly-sized parcels exist in the better Bakken?

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Flaring On The Reservation

Flaring: apparently it's okay to flare on land owned by Native Americans. I posted this yesterday after the Director's Cut was released:

Natural gas capture:

• statewide: 88%
• FBIR: 79%
• goal: 88% through October 31, 2020; then 91%
• comment: the trend continues -- large amount of flaring on BLM land

Today The Bismarck Tribune reports that "state officials are concerned." The article begins:

Flaring on Fort Berthold Indian Reservation increased for the third month in a row, raising concern with state officials.

“You see a real problem developing on Fort Berthold,” said North Dakota Department of Mineral Resources Director Lynn Helms during the department’s monthly report on oil production data Friday.

While the capture, rather than burning off, of natural gas at well sites statewide was at 91 percent, it was only at 79 percent on trust lands and 81 percent on fee lands, Helms said.

“Up until three months ago, it was matching the statewide numbers but, beginning in March or April, you started to see them fall seriously behind,” he said. “It’s pulling the statewide average down quite a bit.”

This becomes a problem as caps on statewide flaring go into effect Nov. 1, and, at the current rate, it will be bumping up against those maximums allowed.

The native Americans say that figures are misleading.

State says this:

Helms said the tribe has been really good with its own pipeline permitting process but blames the issue on difficulty getting federal approval for construction of gas transmission pipelines.

He said there are two significant gathering lines that were held up by the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs approval process. After three years, one was just recently approved for a right of way this year. The other remains in the lurch.

One bright spot is a proposed new gas processing plant southeast of Watford City to be built by Arrow Field Services, according to Helms. The company gave notice of plans for a 200 million per day facility to the DMR but it still has to file for a permit from the North Dakota Public Service Commission.

The company hopes to start construction next spring, Helms said. When complete, it will take in gas from the western third of Fort Berthold.

Fox said he has no doubt there are delays at the federal level and the tribe is doing its best to work through the federal rules. He suggested one way to speed up the process of development in Indian country is to give the tribe more control over its lands, creating both improvements to pipeline permitting and flaring numbers.

“This would really relieve stress in the Mandaree district,” Helms said.