https://www.ndcourts.gov/supreme-court/opinions/203757
This is an interesting decision by the ND supreme court. They have ruled that paying royalties to sections outside of a designated spacing unit violates pooling orders. The main issue appears to be the allocation of production from the overlapping spacing unit to the base spacing unit.
Several years ago I explained this issue to Lynn Helms (The director of the ND Department of Mineral Resources at the time) and Mr. Helms said that paying sections outside a spacing unit was absolutely not allowed. Mr. Helms said he would look at this then get back to me, but then I never heard from him again and he wouldn’t respond to inquiries regarding this topic. Quite interesting to see the ND supreme court step in and vacate an NDIC pooling order.