Williston Basin Bakken in Montana Update: 22 Rigs

Link here to Fairfield Sun Times. com.

Drilling equipment and crews are moving back across the border from North Dakota—where the Bakken Boom has been the Biggest—boosting Montana’s rig count to 22 from just eight at this time last year. Montana’s Department of Natural Resources and Conservation issued a record 356 oil drilling permits in the first ten months of the year, easily beating the previous record of 313 set in 2005.

In October a Texas company paid $13.5 million for 75,000 acres of oil and gas leases, one of the largest federal lease acquisitions by a single company in Montana in recent years. Several other companies, including Bakken leader Continental, are working to expand the boundaries of the state’s most productive Bakken field, known as Elm Coulee.


Investors often forget that the first successful horizontal well drilled into the Bakken was drilled into the Elm Coulee field in Montana, drilled by Lyco Energy Corp in 2000. There were earlier wells, even horizontal ones, but this 2000 Lyco well is widely cited as the first successful one.