The Williston Basin crosses a state line, and the state line changes the economics. What an unleased owner gets, whether your minerals can lapse, and what is withheld from your check all depend on which side you are on. Here is both sides.
The Williston Basin is the second most valuable oil play in the United States and it is the worst served in terms of honest information for the people who own the minerals. Search for how to sell Bakken minerals and the top results are forum threads where owners ask each other for help. That is a market telling you something.
Berlin buys Bakken and Three Forks minerals and royalties on both sides of the state line, plus the legacy conventional production around the basin edges. This page covers what is the same across the basin and, more usefully, what is not.
Most basin pages treat the Williston as one thing. Legally it is two, and the differences are not small.
| North Dakota | Montana | |
|---|---|---|
| Unleased owner pooled into a unit | Acreage weighted average royalty, or cost free 16 percent at operator's election (post 7/31/2009) | One eighth landowner royalty until costs recovered |
| Nonconsent penalty, leased owner | 200 percent of cost share | 200 percent of drilling and completion costs |
| Nonconsent penalty, unleased owner | 50 percent, and only after a good faith attempt to lease | 200 percent applies |
| Election period | Set by NDIC order | 30 days after proper certified mail notice |
| Can minerals lapse for nonuse? | Yes, 20 years, N.D.C.C. ch. 38-18.1 | No. Montana has no dormant mineral act |
| Withholding on royalty payments | None | 6 percent of net royalty, MCA 15-30-2538 |
| Top individual income tax rate | 2.50 percent | 5.65 percent |
| Post production cost rule | At the well, Bice v. Petro-Hunt (2009) | Unsettled. No controlling rule found |
| Severance | 5 percent gross production plus 5 percent extraction, with reductions | 0.5 percent for the first 12 or 18 months, then 9 percent |
Statutory authority: N.D.C.C. sections 38-08-08 and chapter 38-18.1; M.C.A. sections 82-11-202, 15-30-2538, and 15-36-304. Full detail and sources are on our North Dakota and Montana pages.
Two practical consequences for an owner.
A cost free 16 percent in North Dakota is a better royalty than a lot of people negotiated in a lease. Being unleased in the Bakken is not automatically the disaster owners assume. Before you sign a lease under time pressure, run the comparison.
If you own unused minerals in North Dakota, the 20 year clock is more urgent than any sale decision. A recorded statement of claim under N.D.C.C. section 38-18.1-04 costs a recording fee and preserves the interest. We will tell you where you stand free, including when the answer means we cannot buy anything.
Bakken wells have a distinctive production shape and it drives everything.
The tail. A Bakken well delivers a large share of its lifetime production in the first two years, then declines into a long, shallow, remarkably predictable tail. That tail is modelable with real confidence, which is why a producing Bakken royalty is one of the more straightforward things in the mineral world to value honestly.
The inventory. The value that separates a good Bakken interest from an ordinary one is undrilled locations: how many more wells the spacing unit will hold, in which benches, and whether the operator actually intends to drill them. In the core, a 1,280 acre unit may hold many more wells than have been drilled.
A mailer buyer prices your interest off your current check. On core acreage with remaining inventory, that systematically underpays, and it is the most common way Williston owners get taken. When we underwrite a Bakken interest, remaining locations by bench are an explicit, visible line in the analysis, and we show it to you along with what probability we applied and why.
The reverse is also true. Second and third bench Three Forks potential is real in parts of the deep basin and speculative elsewhere. We will price it with a probability rather than promise it, and we will tell you when we think an area does not support the assumption.
Very common in the Williston, for a specific historical reason. Homestead era land in western North Dakota and eastern Montana was patented to families who later moved away, sold the surface, and kept the minerals. Three generations later the descendants are in Minneapolis or Phoenix and know only that grandma had "something in North Dakota."
A check stub, an old division order, a 1099 from an operator, a tax return with royalty income, or a county and a family name is enough for us to start. We run the county records and the state regulator's files and tell you what we find. Free, and we do it whether or not you ever sell.
If money has been sitting in operator suspense or with a state unclaimed property office, we tell you how to claim it and you keep it. See unclaimed royalties, transferring inherited minerals, and selling inherited minerals before probate is done.
Continental Resources, Chord Energy, Hess, Devon, Marathon, Grayson Mill, Kraken, Petro-Hunt, and Whiting through its successor all operate in the basin. They differ in development pace, reporting quality, and how quickly they pay. Our operator directory has current contact information, and our well records by state page links directly to the free public databases:
Last reviewed August 2026. Statutes, rates, and withholding thresholds change. Berlin Royalties is a mineral buyer and a landman shop in Tulsa, not a law firm or a tax advisor, and this page is general information rather than advice about your interest.
The primary target. Dolomitic siltstone between the upper and lower Bakken shales, drilled with two mile laterals across the core and the source of most Williston production since 2008.
Developed across most of the core and treated as a co-equal target with the Middle Bakken in McKenzie, Dunn, and much of Williams and Mountrail.
Real in parts of the deep basin and speculative elsewhere. Honest underwriting prices this with a probability, not a promise, and the difference between those two approaches is most of what separates a fair offer from a bad one.
Decades of vertical production across the basin margins and into Bottineau, Renville, and the Montana northwest. Small decimals, long lives, and title chains untouched since the 1960s.
The core four North Dakota counties hold most of the value. We buy across the basin on both sides of the state line.
Free, no obligation, and no pressure. We reply within one business day, usually faster.
Prefer the phone? Call or text 918-984-1645 and you will get Stephen, the owner, not a call center. If we miss you, we text back the same day.