No. 6 of ten · API state code 33
North Dakota: the NDIC.
Oil and Gas Division, Department of Mineral Resources — the agency that decides where wells go in North Dakota. Here is what it holds, what it doesn't, and the one document worth your afternoon.
The agency
Where it came from
The Oil and Gas Division regulates drilling and production under the North Dakota Industrial Commission, with a statutory mission to prevent waste, maximise economic recovery, and fully protect the correlative rights of all owners — so that landowners, royalty owners, producers and the public all realise the greatest possible good.
- Agency
- Oil and Gas Division, Department of Mineral Resources
- Sits within
- North Dakota Industrial Commission
- Also worth knowing
- Housed with the North Dakota Geological Survey under Mineral Resources
- Website
- www.dmr.nd.gov/dmr/oilgas
- Main plays
- Williston · Bakken · Three Forks
- API state code
- 33 — every well number in the state starts with it
- Pooling / unitization
- Pooling orders required
- Ad valorem on minerals
- Ad valorem: no — confirm the current treatment locally
- Records access
- Partly paid
- Deeds & leases at
- County Recorder
- Production rank
- No. 6 of the ten, at roughly 619 MMBOE a year (EIA, 2023, 6:1)
Agency names, form numbers, websites and fees change. Confirm anything you intend to rely on against the agency's own site.
If you only do one thing
The document to pull
North Dakota · start here
The Industrial Commission spacing and pooling order for your section
North Dakota is explicit about the sequence: before a royalty check is issued, mineral interests have to be determined, and if the leases in a unit do not all contain pooling language, a pooling hearing must be held and a pooling order issued. That order is what puts your tract in the unit.
- Open the GIS Map Server, use Find Section to enter your legal description, and zoom to your area.
- Turn on the layers you need — wells with laterals, field and unit boundaries, and state, federal and tribal land.
- Run a Well Search in the data centre by section, township and range to list every well with a matching surface location.
- Find the spacing and pooling order covering your section. Free search gets you the order number; the scanned case file sits behind the subscription.
- Check the monthly production report for the well — it lists every well capable of producing, with oil, gas and water volumes and days produced.
Worth knowing: if an operator fails to pay royalties within 150 days after the oil or gas is marketed, North Dakota law requires interest on the unpaid royalties at 18% per year until paid. Very few states are that specific.
Worth knowing
What else this agency publishes
Named here rather than linked directly, because deep links into state records systems break more often than the systems do. Search the name from www.dmr.nd.gov/dmr/oilgas.
Where it differs from Texas
Not the same as the RRC
North Dakota is the only one of the ten that puts real records behind a paywall. The map, the well search and monthly production are free; the scanned case files, orders and logs are not.
Before you start
Two things to have in hand
Your legal description
Every search on North Dakota's system wants to know where, and none of them accept a street address as the real answer. Get the section, township and range — or the survey and abstract — off your deed or an old check stub before you open the website. Without it you are guessing.
The API number, once you find it
Every North Dakota well number begins 33. Once you have a well's full API number, write it down: it is the key that works in the state system, in FracFocus, and in every commercial database — and it never changes. Take one apart if you have not seen the structure before.
The thing to remember
The NDIC holds the well and the unit. It does not hold your ownership. Deeds, leases, probates and the chain of title live with the county recorder in the county where the minerals are — and no state oil and gas agency in the country can tell you what you own.