North Dakota Land Lease Sales Results -- February 21, 2011 -- Some Tracts Still Fetch $9,000/Acre -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

I did not see a news article on the quarterly North Dakota land lease sales results held February 21, 2011, suggesting that it was a smaller auction than usual.

Here are some of the highlights, by county:

Williams County: Several smaller tracts with bonuses of $4,500/acre

Mountrail County: Several smaller tracts with bonuses of $1,300/acre

McKenzie County:

• Much more activity, but still smaller tracts, mostly Diamond Resources
• Bonuses from $4,600 to $6,800
• There was one 80-acre tract acquired by Larco Resources for $7,600 (1-152-94); this is in Antelope field; relatively little activity in the immediate area to the north; CLR has one confidential well (Quale 1-1H in this same section (must be a great well); to the section to the west, CLR has another confidential well, Mack 3-2H; and in that same section (2-152-94), there are two producing wells: CLR's Mack 1-2H (IP 380, 83K in two years); and CLR's Mack 2-2H (IP 609, 47K in first four months)
• Clearly the better tracts in this sale

Stark County:

• This is the county where WLL has recent interest
• Many tracts sold; almost all acquired by Clear Creek Resources, LLC
• Almost all under $500/acre; a couple for $800/acre
• With one huge exception: Empire Oil paid $9,000/acre for five separate tracts (four 80-acre tracts; one 60-acre tract); sections 23/26-140-99 and section 1-139-99. These tracts are in the Zenith field, and there is absolutely nothing on the GIS map server from the current boom that would give any hint of the reason why these tracts sold for this amount. A Tyler-pool vertical well spudded in 1984 produced 120K over its lifetime; a Tyler-pool vertical spudded in 1981 produced 116K over its lifetime; and (this might be the reason), the Tyler-pool vertical well spudded in 1984 has produced 608,562 bbls to date and it is still producing at 2,000 bbls a month, and no decline for the past several years -- in fact, it has increased over the past few years.

Divide County: uneventful

Burke County: a few tracts for $1,300 (Petro-Hunt LLC)

Bowman: uneventful (four 160-acre tracts for $50/acre); Trinity Western

Dunn: only three tracts (80-acre, 2-acre, and 6-acre; $3,200 to $3,800/acre); Empire Oil

Slope: several tracts, but uneventful ($140 to $280/acre)