HELENA — Montana regularly sells oil and gas leases for its own land, but rarely, if ever, has it sold mineral rights in another state — until now.
The Montana Land Board on Monday approved the $126,334 lease of the state’s 8 percent ownership interest in more than 11 acres in McLean County, in the heart of North Dakota’s Bakken oil fields. The buyer was Davis Exploration LLC of Stockbridge, Georgia.
Montana acquired the partial mineral rights to that land and four other tracts in western North Dakota from the estate of William Kamps, an outdoor enthusiast from Kalispell. Kamps died in 2011 and left his ownership stake in the North Dakota land to Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks on the condition that proceeds from lease sales go to FWP’s Hooked on Fishing school program in northwestern Montana.
The other four tracts Kamps left to the state are already under lease. The newly leased tract is at the edge of a developed field near Lake Sakakawea on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation, said John Tubbs, director of the Department of Natural Resources and Conservation.
That location, where drilling is imminent, led to the relatively high price for the small acreage, he said.
DNRC officials could not immediately say if the state has ever leased mineral rights outside its own borders.
The North Dakota land was part of Montana’s general lease sale held Dec. 1, when 21 tracts were leased for a total of $140,894. All of the other tracts sold for $1.50 an acre, while the North Dakota tracts went for $10,800 per acre.
Kamps started as a real estate agent but worked for more than 20 years for a Kalispell outdoors retailer, according to his obituary. He wrote a weekly column on hunting and fishing for the Daily Inter Lake newspaper. He died at age 62.
The Hooked on Fishing program provides fishing equipment, a curriculum and teacher training to introduce elementary and middle school students to the sport and the state’s aquatic resources. The curriculum, which is based on a national program called “Hooked on Fishing — Not on Drugs,” is used in nearly 200 classrooms in the state, according to FWP.