The North Dakota Water Commission is offering a five-year oil and gas lease on a 40.09 net mineral acre tract in far northwest McKenzie County in an online auction conducted by EnergyNet.
Online bidding opens at 3 p.m. Central Daylight Time Sept. 11 and remains open until 3 p.m. Sept. 18. The tract is part of an existing 2,560-acre spacing unit defined as Sections 4, 9, 16 and 21, Township 153 North, Range 101 West.
David Laschkewitsch of the Water Commission told Petroleum News Bakken that the commission acquired the property along with the mineral rights in 1939. The commission transferred the property to the Rural Rehabilitation Corp. in 1943, but kept a 50 percent interest in the mineral rights. Laschkewitsch said the commission was not aware of the tract until it was contacted by representatives of an oil company.
The Water Commission tract is adjacent to 19.94-acres that the Mineral Management Division of North Dakota Department of Trust Lands included in its quarterly lease auction in May, which brought a record price of $24,500 per acre. Diamond Resources of Williston was the successful bidder on that lease.
The division has assisted the Water Commission in getting the tract ready for the upcoming online auction.
Detailed information on the tract and the auction is available on EnergyNet’s website at www.energynet.com/govt_listing.pl. Scroll down to the tract identified as “Tract NDSWC-0001” and click on “Track Info.”
Trust Lands entered into a contract with EnergyNet in June 2012 to provide online auction services to the state on an as-needed basis.
EnergyNet also provides online mineral lease auction services for Colorado and Utah.
—Mike Ellerd
