In 2010, the state of North Dakota’s Department of Mineral Resources, or DMR, organized the entire “productive part” of the Bakken petroleum system along the western side of the state into north-south spacing units because state officials thought it was the most environmentally sensitive and sensible way to tap the oil-rich formations.
“We saw that there was a single, rational way to develop the Bakken and Three Forks,” DMR Director Lynn Helms recently told a North Dakota interim legislative committee. “So we issued an order that organized the whole 15,000 square miles into north-south 1280s, and that has made development going forward have a lighter (environmental) footprint and a more rational development when we get into development and transmission.”
It allowed a “prevailing pattern going forward, which is rows of wells located 4 miles apart with the 2-mile-long laterals drilled toe-to-toe as we extend these lines across western North Dakota. What we end up with … is a 5-acre road and well pad, removing the oil and gas from 1,280 acres, or a footprint of 4/10ths of 1 percent,” Helms said, noting 10 years ago it would have been 10 percent.
But soon that environmental impact will be even more tempered.
“Now, as we move forward, we are being asked to start giving greater consideration to things on the landscape. For example, grouse leks (strutting grounds) and piping plover (small shore bird) nesting areas, and bighorn sheep lambing areas, and we’re in the process of developing those concepts as we speak,” Helms said.
Drain on DMR resources
But Helms said re-orienting the 1,280-acre spacing units to allow for such considerations is “going to put a pretty significant strain on resources to go in and do that sort thing.”
He talked to lawmakers about how DMR resolved a situation at Blacktail Dam in Williams County in which DMR applied the process it developed in 2010.
“Through using this process we had a situation developing at Blacktail Dam where … we had a row of wells that were moving straight from Highway 85 towards Blacktail Dam, moving right down the section line. And so we were alerted to that by the Williams County Park and Rec people and we put that on a watch list. The end result was that when the permit came in for the next well, which would have been pretty much right in the spillway of Blacktail Dam, we got hold of the operator and said, ‘no let’s think about a different way of developing this area’ and they were able to look at the maps and realize that they could move the wells two miles north of the dam and two miles south of the dam and put the toes under the dam and leave that area undisturbed,” Helms said.
“There’s a lot of tools in our toolbox going forward but it’s going to take a lot of work and effort on everybody’s part to make those work,” he said.
