Update on Fertile Township, Mountrail County, Parshall Oil Field -- Bakken, North Dakota, USA

Elsewhere someone requested an update on "the area south of Parshall" due to a lot of folks checking their bank deposits. 

I opined some time ago that due to bureaucratic red tape inside the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation (FBIR) resulted in about a 2-year delay in bringing the drilling inside the FBIR up to speed. I also opined that it appeared 2010 would be the year that drilling in the FBIR will catch up with the rest of the Bakken.

To see how that prediction has played out, one has only to look at Fertile Township, T151N-90W, entirely within the FBIR, and entirely within the prolific Parshall oil field, "owned" by EOG.

According to the GIS server, June 9, 2011, and the NDIC the following data points:

• On this 36-section township, there are two active rigs, file numbers 20565, and 20742
• There are seven LOC: permits only, no activity yet
• In addition to the two wells with rigs on site, there are two more wells on the confidential list, and one well almost completed

Total oil produced from wells to date by section:

• Section 1, 17913: 28,961 bbls
• Section 3, 17888: 99,958 bbls
• Section 4, 17727: 90,421 bbls
• Section 4, 17754: 89,556 bbls
• Section 5, 17237: 208,057 bbls (tested 7/24/08)
• Section 6, 17870: 187,914 bbls (tested 8/26/09)
• Section 7, 18057: 130,902 bbls (tested 5/18/10)
• Section 8, 17851: 104,471 bbl (tested 8/25/09)
• Section 9, 17754: 89,556 bbls
• Section 10, 18110: 87,327 bbls
• Section 12,16743: SI -- Fertile 1-12H
• Section 16, 18061: 61,694 bbls
• Section 17, 18117: 84,452 bbls
• Section 18, 18157: 122,043 bbls
• Section 19, 18108: 118,732 bbls
• Section 20, 18800: 69,538 bbls
• Section 20, 18147: 71,012 bbls
• Section 21, 18121: 34,309 bbls
• Section 26, 18338: SI -- Fertile 28-26H
• Section 27, 18412: 1,659 bbls -- Fertile 29-27H (not a typo)
• Section 28, 18289: 36,378 bbls
• Section 30, 18473: 98,232 bbls
• Section 21, 18203: 93,103 bbls
• Section 32, 18172: 69,689 bbls
• Section 33, 18438: 42,592 bbls

Two permits in the modern boom have expired in this township.

The Bakken spacing in this township is all 640-acre.

If this were outside the reservation: I imagine a farmer might own at least half the mineral acres in one section, i.e., that is 320 acres. If one is receiving twenty percent of the royalties, at $50/bbl, when a well has produced 50,000 bbls, the farmer (or his/her heirs) would have been paid $250,000 (if I did the math correctly.  [25,000 bbls x 0.20 x $50  --> $250,000.]

This is inside the reservation, so I don't know how to do the calculations. One can add up the total of these wells in just this one township (2,020,556, not counting what the SI wells might have gotten before they were shut in): multiply x 0.2 x $50 --> $20 million and change.

I can understand why folks are checking their bank deposits.