Bakken Mineral Rights

A Bakken royalty check tells its own story if you know how to read the shape of it — a sharp early spike, a steep drop, then years of a long, quieter tail.

After pricing many Bakken interests, the royalty desk first pulls production history rather than taking anyone's word for what a well is doing. The Bakken and Three Forks in North Dakota's Williston Basin, spilling into eastern Montana, are horizontal, multi-stage-fracked oil wells with one of the steepest decline curves in unconventional oil — first-year declines commonly run 60% to 70% before the well settles into a much flatter, longer tail that can run for decades.

That decline shape matters more here than in almost any other play, because where your interest sits on that curve changes the value conversation entirely. A royalty behind a well that came online eighteen months ago is a very different asset than one behind a well that's been on its flat tail since 2013.

The decline curve, from the check owner's seat

In year one, a strong Bakken well can throw off a genuinely large check relative to the interest size — this is the phase that made the basin famous and put a lot of North Dakota mineral owners on the map. By year three or four, that same well is often producing at a fifth or less of its peak rate, and the check has shrunk accordingly. Owners who bought or inherited in the early boom years sometimes still expect year-one numbers and are surprised when the statement doesn't look like it used to.

The flat tail that follows isn't nothing, though. A well ten years into production can still hold a stable, modest rate for a long time, and multi-well pads mean your unit may see a new well added years after the first, which resets part of the decline picture. Reading your actual check history against the well's spud date tells us far more than any generic Bakken type curve.

Spacing units and multi-well pads

Most Bakken and Three Forks development happens on large horizontal spacing units, often 1,280 acres, with multiple wells targeting different benches of the formation from the same pad over a period of years. That means your royalty interest might be tied to a unit where only two of an eventual six planned wells have been drilled — future wells on that same unit are a real source of upside, but they're not guaranteed, and permitting delays or commodity price cycles can push a planned well back by years.

When we evaluate an offer, we look at whether the operator holds permits for additional wells on your unit and how active that operator has been drilling nearby in the last year or two. An interest with clear remaining development potential prices differently than one where the pad already looks complete.

Reading a Bakken royalty statement

North Dakota statements typically break out oil and gas volumes separately, since a lot of Bakken wells produce meaningful associated gas alongside the oil, some of it flared, some captured and sold depending on gathering infrastructure in your area. Flaring has been a politically charged issue in the basin for years, and if a meaningful share of your unit's gas is being flared rather than sold, that's gas you're simply not being paid on — worth asking your operator directly about their capture percentage.

Also check severance and production tax lines, since North Dakota assesses both, and confirm post-production deductions on the oil side match what your lease allows. Owners who leased in the early boom years sometimes signed quick-turnaround leases with less favorable deduction language than owners who leased later, once landmen and lawyers on the mineral-owner side had more leverage.

Ownership situations across ND/MT Bakken country

A meaningful share of Bakken minerals are held by families who go back generations on the land — homestead-era ownership in McKenzie, Mountrail, Williams, or Dunn County that predates the boom entirely by decades. We also talk to owners who bought small mineral packages during the 2010-2014 rush, sometimes sight unseen, and are now trying to figure out what that purchase is actually worth years into the decline.

Selling makes sense for different reasons depending on where you sit: heirs who never lived near the basin and don't want to track North Dakota tax filings on out-of-state mineral income, owners consolidating several small unit interests into one payment, or owners who'd rather lock in value now than ride out the flat tail for another fifteen years.