While North Dakota will see record oil production this year from nearly 4,000 oil wells, those numbers won't get much boost from the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation.

Chairman Marcus Wells Jr. said he and other officials want to bust through a logjam of backed up oil permits by creating a "one-stop" oil shop on the reservation.

There are only two Bakken formation wells on the reservation, despite the fact that nearly all the minerals are leased up and $122 million in lease payments - almost all for oil acreages - have been sent out to the Three Affiliated Tribes and individual alottees. The tribe expects to receive another $32 million in lease payments within the next two months, Wells said.

Elsewhere, hundreds of wells have been or are being drilled into the Bakken formation, but a 49-step process for wells on the reservation slows permits there to a trickle, Wells said.

Wells said the idea is to get the BIA, Bureau of Land Management, Minerals Management Service, and the Office of the Special Trustee - all agencies involved in the permit process - under one roof so permits can be issued more quickly.

The chairman said even though leases and bonuses are moving along, there are 60 permits pending an environmental review before drilling can start.

"The permits are still taking too long," he said.

Wells said tribal members are putting their bonus payments into homes, investments and transportation and are "looking at royalties."

The Bakken formation is the source of some of the state's most productive wells on the east side of Mountrail County, where the reservation is located. The industry is eager to move across onto reservation land to see how well the formation produces going west.

The BIA added extra staff to issue leases and bonus payments, but drilling companies that want to probe their acreage and get a return on their investment in leases face an 18-month wait, or longer. Outside the reservation, the State Department of Mineral Resources' oil and gas division can issue a drilling permit in about a month.

Wells said he is working with Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and Rep. Earl Pomeroy, D-N.D., on the one-stop oil shop request.

Dorgan made the request Friday to George Skibine, acting deputy assistant secretary for Policy and Economic Development for Indian Affairs at the Department of Interior.

Dorgan said with an estimated 4.3 billion barrels of recoverable oil, the Bakken is one of the richest oil reserves in the country.

"There is no reason to allow a lot of red tape and a scattered bureaucracy to continue to cause these delays," Dorgan said.

(Reach reporter Lauren Donovan at 888-303-5511 or lauren@;westriv.com.)