MINOT (AP) - An area near the Turtle Mountains in Bottineau County may be the next oil hot spot, the state's mineral resources director says.

Lynn Helms said tests are planned in the next few months.

"We're going to run some tests in some wells this winter and over this next year. We think there's a second circle over here, south and east of the Turtle Mountains, that's another hot spot," Helms told the Minot Area Chamber of Commerce's Energy Committee.

A Westhope company, will take thermal measurements, Helms said.

The companies doing most of the drilling in the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota signed two- and three-year contracts, he told the Minot group.

"So they're committed to use that drilling rig for two to three years regardless of the oil price," he said.

Many companies hedge their oil at $100 a barrel and sold future production for three years out at $100 a barrel, Helms said. That helps insulate them from a temporary drop in oil prices, he said.

Some companies acquired hundreds of thousands of acres in mineral leases for less than $100 an acre, Helms said.

"They do not want to go out and re-lease that land at 10 times that money. So they're going to employ those drilling rigs to develop those leases at this point," he said.

Recent oil development in the state has been focused on Mountrail, McKenzie and Dunn counties and across Fort Berthold Reservation, Helms said, In a couple of years, it will move into Ward, Mercer and McLean counties, he said.

While the projected activity depends on the price of oil, Helms said, "we truly believe, five years from now, people will have long forgotten $30 North Dakota sweet crude."