• BISMARCK, N.D. (AP) -- Developers have bought the oil and gas rights to about three-fourths of the available federal land in western North Dakota, pushing prices to record levels despite industry complaints that the federal permitting process is still too onerous to immediately develop the land.
• Federal oil and gas lease sales in the Dakotas and Montana totaled $64.4 million in fiscal 2013, up from $50.1 million the year before, according to the Bureau of Land Management. North Dakota, which has led the three-state region in oil and gas leases for most of the past decade, accounted for the vast majority of sales -- $61.4 million -- which was up from $44.3 million in fiscal 2012.
• Montana tallied $2.9 million in fiscal 2013, down from $4.5 million the year before, and South Dakota fetched about $67,660, down from about $1.3 million in fiscal 2012.
• The BLM offered 214,948 acres in the three-state region in fiscal 2013, with 52,542 acres leased. All of North Dakota's 8,928 acres offered in fiscal 2013 received bids, fetching a record average of $8,922 an acre, up from $2,359 an acre the year before.
• BLM records show that 1,026,161 acres -- or about 1,600 square miles -- of federal land has been leased in North Dakota to date, or about 75 percent of non-tribal federal land. Most of the leases in North Dakota were within the rich Bakken and Three Forks formations in the western part of the state.
• Teri Bakken, a BLM leasing chief in Billings, Mont., said the agency estimates it will offer about 90,000 acres for lease in North Dakota over the next two years.
• "I do expect the bid-per-acre to remain where it is in North Dakota," she said.
• Revenues from the oil and gas leases are shared by the federal government and the state or county where the parcels are located. The federal leases are for 10 years, or twice the amount of time companies are required to drill after obtaining leases on other lands in North Dakota.
• Despite the demand for the federal development rights, only two of the 187 rigs working in North Dakota's oil patch on Monday were drilling on federal, non-tribal land.
• About 90 percent of the drilling in western North Dakota occurs on private land and companies are busy solidifying those leases.
• Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, said many of the

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