About
Editorial standards
How we source, write, review and correct the pages on this site, and what you should know about who publishes it.
Last reviewed:
Who publishes this site
Fort Union Minerals publishes this site. We're a Bakken mineral and royalty buying company. We buy mineral rights and royalty interests in the Bakken and Three Forks formations of North Dakota and eastern Montana. Questions, corrections and requests about any page go to [email protected].
What the site covers
The site covers Bakken mineral rights for owners: the basin and five core county pages, deal and regulatory news, daily summaries of North Dakota Industrial Commission (NDIC) activity reports, contact pages for the largest Bakken operators, and a directory of land service companies and associations. A short resources page points to the regulators and records offices behind it.
Sourcing standard
We go to primary sources first. For regulatory facts, that means the orders, hearing dockets and notices of the North Dakota Industrial Commission and its Department of Mineral Resources (DMR). For state and federal minerals, we use the North Dakota Department of Trust Lands and the Bureau of Land Management. For ownership records, we go to county recorders, and for company information, to the operator’s own official website.
We use secondary sources, such as news reports and trade press, to find the primary document. Where a page relies on a secondary source because no primary document is available, we name it so you can see where the statement came from. We list sources on the page where we use them. Operator history pages carry numbered footnotes that link to each source, and news items end with a source line that links to the document or article.
We write our summaries in our own words. Official documents control. If a summary and the document disagree, the document is right and we'll fix the summary.
How the daily NDIC summaries are produced
The Oil and Gas Division of the DMR publishes a daily activity report on each business day. We write a short summary of that report from the published PDF: new permits, confidential-status changes, operator changes and the rig count. Each summary page gives the report number and the report date, links to the official PDF, and notes that the entries we show are a selection, not the full list.
Dates, updates and review
The news and NDIC pages show when they were last updated, and each daily summary carries its report date. The resources page and the directories show when we last checked links and contact details. We add daily NDIC pages on business days. We review reference pages, such as the county pages, the guides and the directories, periodically and update them when something they rely on changes. The date at the top of this page is the date we last reviewed it.
Corrections
If you find an error, email [email protected] with the address of the page and what's wrong. We check the claim against the primary source. We correct verified errors promptly and note the correction on the page.
Not legal, tax or investment advice
This site is general information. It isn't legal, tax or investment advice, and it's no substitute for an attorney. Title, leases, division orders and sales turn on the documents for a specific tract, so talk to a qualified attorney before you sign anything.
Independence and commercial interest
Fort Union buys minerals and royalties, so we have a commercial interest in the subject of this site. We say so here so you can weigh what you read. The site carries no sponsored content. Operator and service-company listings are informational. They aren't paid placements and they aren't endorsements by Fort Union, and a logo in a listing identifies the company without implying any affiliation.
Contact information policy
The operator and service-company directories list only business contact details that are publicly available, taken from the organization’s own official website. Each listing links to that website. If a detail looks out of date, tell us at the address above and we'll check it against the official site.
The offer form
The form on the offer page opens an email to [email protected] from your own email app. We use the information you send only to evaluate your offer.