I will try to answer you questions to the best of my knowledge as we are mineral owners as well in McKenzie County, ND.
1. You are receiving royalty payments for both wells because both of these wells were drilled within the 1280 acre spacing unit. Before they start the drilling, the operator will pool all of the leases within the unit that they want to drill. In your example, everyone who owns mineral acres in that 1280 acre unit will receive their portion of the minerals regardless of the location of the well within the unit. To figure out your royalty interest you would take your net mineral acres and divide it by 1280. You would then take this number and multiply it by your royalty interest to get an ownership decimal. This number is then multiplied by the barrels of oil sold to come up with what your share is each month. Always verfiy your ownership interest as we have found some significant mistakes on ours. Do not take what they put on the Division order for granted, apply the math and contact them if there are any discrepancies.
An example of the above math would be as follows: 20 net acres / 1280 (spacing unit) = .015625
Take this number and multiply it by your royalty interest(example using 18.5% interest): .015625 x .1875 = .00293. After you put your numbers in, they should match up to what was quoted on your division order.
2. Are all of the sites located within this 1280 acre spacing unit? If so, then the ND Oil and Gas division feels that the area can handle the wells. The three well pads will more than likely contain 4 horizontal legs each with 2 targeting the Bakken and 2 targeting the Three Forks formation. Continental Resources as well as others feel that the Three Forks holds a significant amount of oil that can be accessed from these single pad/four directional drilling pads. Spacing unit does not change, nor does your ownership interest. You still have the same decimal that you figured out above to apply to all of the successful wells that are drilled.
3. The trend is now leaning towards these Eco-Pads that Continental is using because they cost less and can be drilled faster for a total of four wells (2 Bakken and 2 Three Forks). Should be more of the norm as they perfect it in my opinion.
4. An example about your good problem: Using the ownership interest I figured in the above example you are looking at the potential for significant oil. Take the ownership interest times barrels of oil per day, times total wells, times $80 per barrel.
.00293 x 100 x 12 x 80 = $281 / per day. Not bad just for a short walk to the mailbox to get your check each month.
I know the 100 barrel of oil per day estimate is low, but the Bakken wells do have a steep decline after the first year so that is a conservative figure. Some of our wells are a year old and we are still seeing flows of 8,000 barrels per month, so about 250 barrels a day.
One word of caution however, don't go spend all of the money now as a lot of things can change (increased federal regulations, environmental concerns, well issues, etc). It is a nice thing to have when it comes, but do not budget and count on it each month.