Permits in January, 2012 -- The Williston Basin, North Dakota, USA

I recorded 168 permits issued by the NDIC for the month of January, 2012. That puts us on track for about 2,000 new permits this year.

By producer:

• CLR: 18 new permits
• Whiting: 13 new permits

By county:

• Dunn: 34
• McKenzie: 37
• Mountrail: 34
• Stark: 10
• Williams: 34

There is a lot of talk of expiring leases this year, now that we are into the fifth year of this Bakken boom, which I say started in 2007.  I am sure we will start to see anecdotal evidence of this but in the big scheme of things it won't amount to much.

Every day, I update my data base of wells reporting IPs. I generally do not have to open up the database of permits in 2009 (or before). Most of the updates are for permits issued in 2011 and in 2010, and even those in the latter are dwindling in number. It is very, very unusual to have to open up the 2009 database to record a new well.

Operators appear to be very "current" on their permits.