Oil Activity in Montana; the Montana Dockets (Bakken, USA)

For those interested, here is the link to the Montana dockets.

If you don't bookmark that link, you can easily find the link on my "Data Links" page, one of the tabs at the top of the website.

The last few Montana dockets confirm all the talk about drillers going back into Montana. The two counties where most of the action is includes Richland County where Elm Coulee is, west of McKenzie County in North Dakota; and, Roosevelt County.

Roosevelt County is of particular interest. It is directly north of Richland County, and immediately west of Williston, North Dakota. US Highway 2 and the Burlington Northern railroad run right through Roosevelt County. The highway has been widened to four lanes. This is a very, very active part of Montana and one can see much of the oil activity along the highway.

The prominent players, according to the dockets, in this area are two very familiar North Dakota names: CLR and BEXP. In addition, as expected, EOG is there. Among the many others that could be there, I was surprised to see all the XTO activity. One company that we don't hear much about in North Dakota but is very active in Montana is Enerplus (ERF), a Canadian company in the process of reorganizing / restructuring. Last, but not least, is a company with a fairly decent presence in North Dakota, Zenergy.

I don't have time to follow Montana closely but I may have to start reporting on involvement of these companies as they move back into Montana a bit more often. We'll see.