Time Line

North Dakota Mineral Rights Williams County, ND
1

Hi All,

I have two 80-acre parcels in 158N, 102W, Williams County. We’re halfway through a 3-year lease. Permits pulled late last fall. What sort of timeline should I expect? I realize many variables come into play. Just something in the ballpark. 1-2 years? 5? 10?

Thanks, Rick

2

Permits mean nothing, cost about 8 cents per acre and are granted for the asking if you will pay the fee. On one of my spacings I have had permits granted, permanently cancelled, multiple permits granted, the spacing change hands, more permits granted and others cancelled, all with an excellent well just over the line. When do I expect them to drill? I don’t. The present and previous operators have never sent me an offer to lease. From watching for the last 6 years, I know it’s pointless to try to guess when that particular spacing will be drilled. I have some relatively low producing single wells in good areas, drilled between 2007 and 2010 with only 10 frac stages at lower pressures and what looks to me like a suboptimal proppant mix. A lot of people should be glad they weren’t the lab rat. Hang in there.

3

Thanks for your thoughts Mr. Kennedy. Looks like uncertainty is the only certainty.

4

Richard Radke said:

Thanks for your thoughts Mr. Kennedy. Looks like uncertainty is the only certainty.

5

Mr. Radke, that is it in a nutshell. If more rigs and crews were available they would all be busy also. It’s a huge amount of area to nail down with a single well in each spacing and some spacings are getting 2 wells. Some people follow rig movements on the NDIC site, it might give you a few days advance notice. I and others think that operators give precedence to drilling spacings where they are facing having to lease a lot of acres again. I think one could purchase one month’s subscription to the (NDRIN) North Dakota Recorders Information Network and try to determine when the greatest amount of leases are to expire in a given period of time in a spacing to make an informed guess of when a rig might show up to beat lease expirations, or at least the dozer to make pits and pad to hold by continuing operations. I just keep an eye on the GIS server map, when I see the rig symbol, then I know.

Richard Radke said:

Thanks for your thoughts Mr. Kennedy. Looks like uncertainty is the only certainty.