# The Second Decimal: When a New Bakken Unit Covers Your Old One > Operators are laying 2,560 and 3,840 acre units over existing 1,280s for long laterals. That creates a second, smaller decimal beside your original, and it does not reallocate production from the older wells. Source: https://www.berlinroyalties.com/bakken/overlapping-spacing-units/ Publisher: Berlin Royalties, a veteran-owned oil and gas mineral and royalty buyer in Tulsa, Oklahoma, buying for its own account since 2014. Call or text 918-984-1645. License: free to quote and cite with attribution to Berlin Royalties and a link to the source URL. The Bakken ยท Spacing ## The second decimal If you own Bakken minerals under a well drilled between 2012 and 2016, the thing most likely to change your income is not a refrac. It is an operator laying a much larger unit over the one you are already in, and it will give you a second decimal that looks alarmingly small. [Ask a Landman, Free](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) [Measure My Section](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/section-township-range-map/) A spacing unit is the acreage the state assigns to a well. Your decimal on that well is, in the ordinary case, your net mineral acres divided by the acres in the unit, multiplied by your royalty fraction. Change the size of the unit and you change the decimal, and the Bakken is currently changing the size of its units a great deal. ## What is happening Three and four mile laterals need units to run in. On the July 2026 NDIC hearing docket alone, Continental filed spacing applications for **2,560, 3,840, 5,120 and 6,400 acre units**, concentrated in Divide County and northern Williams. A 1,280 acre unit is two sections. A 6,400 acre unit is ten. These larger units are frequently laid **over** existing ones rather than replacing them. The old 1,280 keeps producing from its old wells on its old decimals. The new unit exists alongside it for the new long lateral. ## The arithmetic, and why the new number looks wrong Say you own 40 net mineral acres and a one eighth royalty. | | Your original 1,280 acre unit | A new 3,840 acre unit over the top | | Your net mineral acres | 40 | 40 || Acres in the unit | 1,280 | 3,840 || Your share of the unit | 0.03125 | 0.01042 || Times a 1/8 royalty | **0.00390625** | **0.00130208** | The second decimal is a third of the first. Nothing has been taken from you. You still hold the original decimal on the original wells, and the new decimal is your share of a new well that did not exist before. Two decimals, two wells, one set of minerals. The mistake we see is an owner receiving a division order for the new well, seeing a number a third the size of the one they know, and concluding they have been shorted. The second mistake is the opposite: an owner assuming the new decimal replaces the old one and that their income has collapsed. One honest note on the arithmetic. North Dakota law requires each tract to receive a "just and equitable share" and does not itself specify surface acreage allocation. Straight surface acreage is standard practice and is what the numbers above assume, but it is practice rather than something the statute dictates, so read the actual pooling order for your unit. ## What to do when the notice arrives - **Read it rather than filing it.** An NDIC hearing notice naming your township and range is the only advance warning you get. Everything after this point is harder to influence. - **Work out whether it overlaps what you already have.** If the new unit covers acreage already in a producing unit, expect a second decimal, not a replacement. - **Check your net mineral acres.** Not the family story about the acreage, the actual number. Bakken sections are frequently not 640 acres, and if your description calls a numbered government lot rather than a quarter quarter it is almost certainly not 40 acres. Our [section map](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/section-township-range-map/) will measure the real surveyed acreage of your section. - **Demand the statement.** North Dakota obliges the operator to give you the spacing unit, your net mineral acres, the gross acres in the unit and your decimal. See [the ownership interest statement](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota/ownership-interest-statement/). - **Watch for a pooling election with a clock on it.** If you are unleased you may face a decision with a deadline. See [how forced pooling works](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/forced-pooling-oklahoma/), noting that the Oklahoma detail there is Oklahoma's and North Dakota's process runs through the NDIC. ## What about refracs? Worth addressing because owners ask, and because there is more noise than evidence. The published record on Bakken refracs is thin. The most substantial dataset we could find is a conference study by Tim Leshchyshyn of FracKnowledge, presented at GeoConvention 2022 and URTeC 2023, which identified 256 North Dakota wells fractured twice and reported 34.2 percent incremental recovery, with 91 percent of refracs achieving some incremental recovery. Continental described a dozen refractured wells online since early 2022, and Enerplus announced a program targeting wells five to ten years old, in a trade magazine in July 2023. Neither has published results since. Set against that: Chord Energy, now the largest pure play Williston operator, made no mention of refracs in its second quarter 2026 presentation, and its stated capital efficiency story is three and four mile laterals and wider spacing. The NDIC does not publish a refrac count at all. So attribute those numbers to their source and their date, and do not let anyone tell you a refrac will restore new well economics on your particular 2013 well. The public record does not support that. **The part that matters to a seller.** If a refrac does happen on your well, it resets the decline curve in a way that will not be visible in the trailing production history a buyer is pricing off. A multiple built on the last twelve months of a tired well does not know a restimulation is coming. That cuts in your favour and it is worth asking about before you accept a number. ### Got a spacing notice you do not understand? Send it to us. We will tell you whether it overlaps acreage you already have, what the new decimal should be, and whether anything about it needs a response from you. Free, no obligation, and no expectation you ever sell anything to us. [Ask a Landman](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/ask-a-landman/) [Get a Free Valuation](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/free-valuation/) ## Related - [Where Bakken drilling is moving](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/bakken/where-the-drilling-is-moving/) - [The statement your operator owes you](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota/ownership-interest-statement/) - [Flared gas royalty in North Dakota](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/north-dakota/flared-gas-royalty/) - [The section map, with real surveyed acreage](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/section-township-range-map/) - [Division orders](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/division-order/) and [how mineral rights are valued](https://www.berlinroyalties.com/mineral-rights-value/) Docket detail from the July 2026 NDIC hearing docket. Refrac figures attributed above to their named sources and dates; no state agency in either state publishes refrac counts or results. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm. We buy in these counties.