The two principal oil companies, Burlington Resources Oil and Gas Company and Continental Resources, Inc. have drilled 175 horizontal wells in the Cedar Hills Field. The companies are trying to unitize the area and also the West Medicine Pole Hills field. These two companies have different ideas about how the units should be formed. Their difference of opinion on this subject is stalling the unitization process, and until they reach an agreement, the North Dakota Industrial Commission has curtailed production from the Cedar Hills Field. Total acreage will vary due to estimates of the acreage owned by the state under navigable rivers and lakes.
Stark County continues to be the highest producing county in North Dakota.
The Lodgepole fields, that have yielded tremendous volumes of oil from relatively small fields, have been successfully unitized. One of these fields, the Eland field, increased from 300 barrels per day to over 12,000 barrels per day. Horizontal drilling technology has generated renewed interest throughout the Williston Basin. Many Canadian companies have been looking to extend their production through leases in North Dakota, especially in the northern counties. With the fall in oil prices came a fall in interest in our oil and gas leases.