Lilly, before I made any kind of decision I would look at production of offset wells [other wells nearby] which is not hard to do. Usually the intelligence gathering can't be done on an area or township level, best information comes from the next spacing over, above or below. In the Bakken, you also want to consider that wells with numbers from 16,000 to 17,000 (file #) are from when they were still figuring out how to get the best production and may not be typical of results of a new well with twice or three times the frack stages, the use of more and better sand and ceramic propants. I'm willing to help for the asking. I promise not to drive my toyota halfway across the country, dig a hole 10,000 feet deep and steal your minerals, I leave that sort of thing to land companies and lessees.
I am non-consent in a spacing where I have 1.93 acres, if that was all I had, I think I would have been better off leasing but I have other acres in parcels ranging from 3 to 11 acres scattered about. I think 5 to 10 acres, in a good area is enough to make it worth your while. If you get a good well, it pays out, you get 6 1/4 times the money you had been getting with your 16% royalty, less costs which are generallt very low. You need to sock some of that back for rainy days, that does not mean you can't use it. You could pay off your house and open a line of credit so you would have ready money to pay your well bills. If you are only getting after costs 4 times the amount that those who leased for 20% are receiving, it wouldn't take long to catch up and pass those who leased for a little more royalty and bonus.
I have a friend who has a well that has done 100k bbl oil in 8 months, the expenses for his ten acres in that time were $65. I have a well that costs me about $1.40 a month per acre.These are not low producing stripper wells as some have said.
Many people are comparing Bakken wells to verticle wells or horizontal gas wells in TX and OK but to call them apples and oranges is an injustice because they aren't even that close. The plan from the beginning of verticle wells is to rework them, in the same producing zone or when they plug them and change to a different zone. Major remedial work on a extended long lateral Bakken well is rare. The only XXL Bakken wells I have heard of that have been refracked only had 1 or 2 frack stages to begin with, they were wells from a decade ago. So rare that when I want to talk to someone at the NDIC about one they say they don't know anything about it because it's so rare.
Just throwing out some rough numbers, a pretty poor but still commercially profitable area may produce $25,000 per acre and after costs give you the equivalent of a lease at 33%. $25,000 per acre is only 312 bbl an acre over the life of the well at $80 a bbl. $50,000 per acre is about what they are talking about with a 750,000 bbl EUR, this would be a good area. A great area could be $100,000 per acre or more. In my example above in a poor well 67% of the value of produce from your acres could be eaten up by costs, I would still take it if I had enough acres to make it worth watching, 5 or more, and sell it when it declined enough that it wasn't worth the time anymore, because nobody is offering me a 33% royalty with or without bonus. If the well really is losing money, give it back to the operator so he has to pay you the salvage value and you are no longer responsible for the bills,you will retain your mineral rights in the next or any other wells.
Lets look at the $50,000 per acre, which is just ho hum, average to good. The well cost has not gone up much if any but the money has doubled. It is time to flip the script, you could well have the equivalent of 67% royalty after costs. 5 acre at 20% royalty and $2,000 bonus for $250,000 = $60,000 over 30 years but that is if the operator can't make deductions from your royalty for anything. $250,000 X .67 = $167,500 over 30 years, this is very close to what the operator would make after paying royalty, YOU PAY NOBODY A ROYALTY, you get 16.67% to 20% more from your acres than the operator does. If you can't pay your bills with 16.67 to 20% more than what the operator receives, then the operator is going broke. This is not counting deductions that you have as an owner that lessor mineral owners don't have. Do I even have to get into the $100,000 per acre minerals? That still wouldn't be monster production, just very good.
The point of all this is that non-consent, you still have options. The operator is still telling me I can lease if I want, because long term, the operator wants the money from my acres and not just a risk penalty. If I felt like cashing out I could sell my interest in the wells for more than I would receive in royalty right now and not have to wait 30 years. Do some research, look at some of the nearby wells production, crunch some numbers, read the law. It makes no difference to me what you decide, I just want your decision to be an awake and informed one. The industry people generally tell you to roll over and go back to sleep. Most industry people don't know a thing about going non-consent in ND, why should they? If you go non-consent the industry people have failed, they probably will not make the lions share of the money off your acres. Mineral owners who will not lease in ND are bad for profit in any area that is commercially profitable. That being the case they are going to drag out every verticle gas well horror story that they can find anywhere and use it to say this could happen to your Bakken XXL oil well.
There are risks, your well could be drilled, completed and immediately be plugged if it doesn't produce and the operator can place a lien against the PRODUCTION of your minerals, THE MINERALS HE FAILED TO FIND. Might as well place a lien against the air in my backyard. There will not likely be another attempt to produce minerals from your acres if the well was that bad. You could also go non-consent in any future well and collect the mandated 16% royalty from the first barrel, which is not chickenfeed.
If your well just barely manages to pay out and retire the penalty, you will be responsible for the bills from that point. You get to make the decision of keeping your part of the well or giving it back and letting the operator pay you the salvage value of your part of the well. You have not signed a suicide pact with the well draining your finances month after month, year after year as the industry people say it will. They frequently talk about plugging cost, that would be a good point to give your interest back and let the operator pay you the salvage cost, if you haven't already done so. You still own the minerals, you still have ownership in any other wells, it's not all or nothing.