The last time we profiled Harold Hamm, the billionaire founder of Continental Resources, it was early 2009 and oil prices had slumped to $40 a barrel. This was bad news for Hammʼs big push into the Bakken oil play of North Dakota and Montana, where tight rocks and tricky drilling necessitate $50 crude to break even. With oil back at $100, Hamm is sitting pretty with the biggest holding in the Bakken and set to invest $1 billion there this year in his quest to prove that it is not just one of the biggest oil fields in the United States, but in the whole world. “Out of all the oil plays in the U.S., thereʼs just one Bakken,” Hamm says. “It towers above everything else.”Harold Hamm's CLR has 855,936 net acres in the Bakken. I assume the article is accurate: note that the writer says CLR has 25 rigs in the Bakken. Recent corporate presentations said 22 and I recently counted 24, so 25 is a new high.
Continental has already prospered from Hammʼs Bakken bet—shares are up 250% since early 2009. Hammʼs 72% stake is worth $8 billion. Hamm currently has 25 of the 175 rigs working the Bakken. In the past year Continental’s Bakken output has exploded 70% to 28,000 barrels per day.
Heʼs just getting started. “We’re going to triple the size of the company within five years,” says Hamm, 65. Within five years Continental will likely be pumping 100,000 bpd from the basin, and to grow its proved reserves from 400 million barrels to more than 1 billion.
I'm not sure about the "$50 crude to break even." Corporate presentations certainly don't suggest $50.
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