Original Post
Six miles north of the Hebron oil field, bordering the Montana state line, lies the 36-section Strandahl oil field, covering the entire T157N-R103W.
I've not driven that particular field, but based on what I've seen in the surrounding area, it is probably fairly flat, non-descript, and covered with golden grain about this time of the year.
There's not a lot of activity in this small field yet, but four wells / permits in 36 sections, this far west and this far north from the "core" Bakken is not bad. In addition, it appears the primary operators, G3 and Oasis have a limited number of rigs that they can throw against this field. But activity is bound to pick up over time based on all the Oasis and BEXP activity in the Bull Butte oil field immediately to the south.
For investors, G3 is a subsidiary of GEOI (GeoResources).
Permits and activity currently in the Strandahl:
- 19169, 685, G3 Operating, Carlson 1-11H, Strandahl, erratic production; looks stable at about 3K bbls/month for now; 22K after first 6 months
- 19574, 444, Oasis, Grimstvedt Federal 5703 42-34H, Strandahl; 24K first 6 months
- 20707, confidential, G3 Operating, Pasternak 1-1-12H, Strandahl
- 20533, rig on site, G3 Operating, Rasmussen 1-25-36H, Strandahl
The mineral acreage in this field (leases) will began expiring this year and next as a large amount of this acreage was leased back in 2008. There has little activity (compared to surrounding fields) in this area which has multiple temp. spaced sections. These leases were obtained in 2008 when bonus amounts were $100 - 150/acre and low %royalty amounts. I look for operators in this field (G-3 and Oasis) to possibly began either selling or swapping leases in order to avoid having to re-lease at today's prices. One great well in the field would open the area up but the clock is running.
ReplyDeleteIntersting that there should not be any 1280 spacing or possibly 640 acre spacing in regards to the sections that border Montana as it appears these sections contain under 500 acres each. This will interesting to see what the spacing will be if a well is drilled.
ReplyDeleteThank you for taking the time to post a great comment.
ReplyDeleteYou are sooo correct. The clock is ticking. I am currently transcribing the August NDIC dockets, and it's quite a process to get a well spudded (administratively), so I agree with you. There will be some horse-trading.
We might even see a new operator come in, perhaps from Canada.
If you want to see some interesting spacing, and the huge number of wells operators plan on drilling per spacing unit in the Bakken, check out the NDIC August hearing docket, which I am in the process of transcribing. I think even the "poorest" mineral acreage in the Williston Basin will have more wells than we can imagine when this is all over.
ReplyDeleteRemember, the UND folks say there will be active drilling in the Bakken until 2030 and production through 2100.