Elm Coulee Field in Richland County, Montana is where the modern Bakken was actually proven. In late 1999 Lyco Energy drilled the Burning Tree State 36-10 on a geologic idea developed by Richard Findley, and the field established in 2000 became the first place anyone produced the Middle Bakken commercially at scale. By 2006 it was making tens of thousands of barrels a day — more than the state of Montana had produced only a few years earlier — and it set the template every North Dakota operator followed.
The Bakken had been recognized as a rich source rock since the 1950s, but the Middle Bakken between the two shales was generally dismissed as too tight to produce. In the mid-1990s geologist Richard Findley worked out that a dolomitized interval of the Middle Bakken in eastern Montana had enough storage and natural fracturing to be worth drilling horizontally. Lyco Energy took on the project in 1996 and began assembling leases across Richland County.
The Burning Tree State 36-10 was drilled in late 1999 and flowed at modest rates by later standards, but it worked, and the field was established in 2000. What made Elm Coulee genuinely important was the combination that followed: horizontal wellbores steered inside the dolomitic Middle Bakken and stimulated with hydraulic fracturing. By 2006 more than 350 wells were producing roughly 53,000 barrels a day, and the field was among the most significant onshore discoveries in the lower 48 in half a century.
Lyco sold its Elm Coulee position in the mid-2000s, and the field has since passed through several operators as the Williston Basin consolidated. Attention shifted to North Dakota after the 2006 Parshall results demonstrated that the same approach worked on far larger acreage, but Elm Coulee remains the proof of concept. Wells drilled here in the early 2000s now have more than two decades of production history — the longest record available anywhere for a horizontal Bakken well.
Elm Coulee produces from a dolomitized interval within the Middle Bakken at depths on the order of 10,000 feet in Richland County. What distinguishes the rock here is diagenetic dolomite that created storage capacity the tight siltstone elsewhere in the play lacks, combined with some natural fracturing. It is still a low-permeability reservoir that requires horizontal wellbores and hydraulic fracturing to produce, but the Montana Bakken section is thinner than the deep North Dakota core, which limits total recovery per unit area.
Elm Coulee is developed by drilling rather than injection. Additional recovery comes from infill wells and from refracturing older completions, many of which were stimulated with a small fraction of the proppant used in modern designs — which makes this field one of the better candidates in the basin for restimulation. Because the wells here are the oldest horizontal Bakken producers anywhere, their long-term behavior is closely studied as a guide to how the rest of the play will age.
Elm Coulee interests carry something no North Dakota Bakken interest can: more than twenty years of actual production history. That makes the decline behavior easier to model, but it also means the early wells are deep into their tails and most of their value is already paid out. Value today typically rests on remaining infill locations and refrac potential rather than on existing producers. We buy minerals and royalties in Richland County and provide free written offers.
County-level well data, production charts, and selling guides for the counties this field spans:
It was the first place the Middle Bakken was produced commercially at scale using horizontal drilling with hydraulic fracturing. Oil had been produced from the Bakken interval in North Dakota since the 1950s in naturally fractured spots, but Elm Coulee, established in 2000, is what proved the play could be developed deliberately.
Generally no. The Bakken section is thinner and less overpressured in Richland County than in the deep McKenzie County core, so per-well recoveries are lower and mineral values usually reflect that. Elm Coulee is the strongest part of the Montana Bakken, but it does not match the North Dakota core on a per-acre basis.
A refrac restimulates an existing wellbore with a modern completion design, which can lift production well above the pre-refrac rate. If your unit has older wells with light original completions, refrac potential can be a real part of the interest. How costs are treated depends on your lease, since royalty and working interests are affected differently.