Texas is the headquarters of much of the energy industry in the United States, and, consequently, Texas is also home to a major portion of the oil and gas bar. However, the discoveries of oil and gas taking place outside of Texas have caused many Texas oil and gas attorneys to shift the focus of their practices out of state. In particular, the Bakken Shale development has caught their attention, shifting their eyes northward.
The Bakken Shale is a geologic formation underlying western North Dakota and eastern Montana. The discovery well in the Bakken was completed in 1952 on Henry Bakken’s farm outside Williston, notes a report on the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s website, "Technology-Based Oil and Natural Gas Plays: Shale Shock! Could There Be Billions in the Bakken?" But horizontal well drilling and production took off in the early 2000s.
