Harold Hamm

Birthday: December 11, 1945

Hometown: Lexington, Oklahoma 

Primary residence: Oklahoma City 

Current role: Executive Chairman of Continental Resources and DEPA 

Net worth: $18.5 billion 

2021 Salary: $824,000 as Chairman of Continental Resources

Education: High school diploma; honorary degrees from the University of Mary, Oklahoma State University, the University of Oklahoma, and the University of North Dakota.

Board memberships, affiliations, and roles:

• Executive Chairman & co-founder of the Domestic Energy Producers Alliance (DEPA) 

  • “Mr. Hamm is widely recognized as the person who led the charge to lift America’s 40-year-old ban on U.S. crude oil exports.” 

• Creator of the Hamm Institute for American Energy at Oklahoma State University 

• Member of the Horatio Alger Association of Distinguished Americans

• Member of the Global Leadership Council at the Offutt School of Business of Concordia College

• Board Member of the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma

Past roles: 

• CEO of Continental Resources (1967-2019)

• Chairman of the Petroleum Alliance of Oklahoma

• Founding Board Member Oklahoma Energy Resources Board

• President of the National Stripper Well Association

• Founder & Chairman of Save Domestic Oil Inc.

Fun facts: 

• Harold Hamm wrote a book called “Game Changer: Our 5-Year Mission to Accomplish America’s Energy Independence.” 

• Hamm allegedly turned down the job of energy secretary during the 2016 Trump administration

• Hamm did not initially go to college, working through high school for a local oilfield contractor. After early success, Hamm was able to attend college, where he went to learn more about how to find oil and gas, and did not obtain a degree

• Continental Resources was founded by 21-year-old Hamm in 1967 with the name Shelly Dean Oil Company (naming the company after his two daughters) and was rebranded into Continental Resources in 1990

• Hamm’s passion for oil was born when he hand-wrote a high school term paper called “Oil.”

Harold Hamm is responsible for increasing oil production and fracking in the United States. 

Continental Resources climate crimes 

• Continental Resources has had an extremely negative impact on the environment. As one of the largest oil producers and natural gas frackers in the US, the company has had a profound contribution towards activities that harm the environment. 

• The company uses drilling to produce its oil, which is harmful to the environment, in addition to the fact that the use of oil for energy will also generate pollution and waste as a result. 

• Hamm refers to hydraulic fracturing as ‘horizontal drilling’ instead of ‘fracking,” which carries a negative connotation. 

  • According to Forbes, Hamm hates being called a “fracker” because it sounds “pejorative and disrespectful.”  

DEPA climate crimes 

• DEPA advocates for increased production of American oil and gas and praises the effects of carbon dioxide on our environment. 

Led the charge to lift the ban on US oil exports

• Hamm is recognized as a leader in the charge to lift the 40-year ban on U.S. oil exports, which was lifted in 2015, largely thanks to his efforts. 

• This allowed Hamm and Continental Resources to produce even more oil than before with the global market, which undoubtedly caused an increase in their emissions and pollution output.

• Hamm is currently worth $18.5 billion (Forbes)

• As of July 17, 2024, he was ranked #102 on the list of the richest people in the world.

• In 2020, his net worth decreased from $12.7 billion at the end of 2019 to just $2.4 billion at the end of 2020. This is quite a significant decrease, but it is even more notable that just two years from then in 2022, his net worth was at a staggering $17.2 billion.

• It can also be worth noting that Hamm was the youngest of 13 children, born to a family of sharecroppers in rural Oklahoma. Hamm grew up doing farm work, up through his teenage years, usually not being able to attend school until around Christmas time. Growing up impoverished, Hamm’s fortune and his entire livelihood today is a result of Continental Resources and the fossil fuel industry. 

• Hamm has received numerous awards. Some of these awards include:

  • Lifetime Achievement Award - Platts Global Energy Awards (2016)

  • CEO of the year - Platts Global Energy Awards (2013)

  • Energy Company of the Year - Platts Global Energy Awards (2013)

  • Chief Roughneck Award - US Steel Tubular Products (2016)

  • Horatio Alger Award (2016)

  • Executive of the Year - Oil and Gas Investor magazine (2016)

  • Wildcatter of the Year - Western Energy Alliance (2015)

  • 100 Most Influential People in the World - TIME Magazine (2012)

  • Energy Advocate of the Year - International Energy Policy Conference

  • Entrepreneur of the Year - Ernst & Young (2007)

• Hamm has also been inducted into various halls of fame, including: 

  • Oklahoma Hall of Fame (2011) 

  • Western Energy Alliance's Rocky Mountain Hall of Fame (2014)

  • Hart Energy’s Hall of Fame (2023)

• Harold Hamm is known for pioneering the use of fracking. His autobiography, Game Changer discusses his role in halting the “terminal decline” of oil output in the United States and how fracking led to a boom in exporting oil and liquid natural gas.  

• Continental Resources is “an independent crude oil and natural gas company formed in 1967 engaged in the exploration, development, management, and production of crude oil and natural gas and associated products.” 

  • Continental Resources extracts and produces crude oil and natural gas. 

  • Continental Resources operates as the largest leaseholder in the Bakken Play of North Dakota and Montana, which is one of the nation’s most profitable oil fields. 

  • Continental Resources also operates in the Permian Basin, the South Central Oklahoma Oil Province (SCOOP), and Sooner Trend Anadarko Canadian Kingfisher (STACK) oil reserves in the Anadarko Basin, among other positions close to the Midwest. 

  • Continental Resources most recently posted a five-year performance report on their emissions spanning from 2018 through 2022. 

  • Some notable numbers from this report above are the Scope 1 emissions for CO2e, which in 2022 was at 3.0 million (~3,000,000) tonnes of CO2e and the methane emissions, which was 0.82 million (~820,000) tonnes of CO2e. 

• Hamm has also argued against the use of coal in the United States, “the filthiest fossil fuel.” He wants coal replaced with natural gas. 

• The Domestic Energy Producers Alliance is a “collaboration of 39 coalition associations – representing over 10,000 individuals and companies.” 

  • DEPA’s homepage reads: “PRODUCE MORE AMERICAN OIL & NATURAL GAS.”

  • DEPA’s “Energy, Environment & Climate” page reads like a love letter to carbon dioxide that seeks to equate today’s global warming with historical “organic flows” of the carbon cycle. “Carbon dioxide is plant food,” the page goes on, “and roughly half the CO2 released in this combustion reaction goes into the oceans or into “greening” the planet. Increased availability of CO2 in the atmosphere has led to increased agricultural productivity and a significant increase in global plant matter, grasses, trees, and plankton.” This page is an excerpt from Liberty Energy’s 2024 report called “Bettering Human Lives.” 

  • Climate change is not mentioned on this page.

• As a well-known oil tycoon, Harold Hamm has received plenty of pushback from environmentalists. For example, after the Washington Post published a warm profile of him in 2012, Grist responded with an article of their own, subtitled: “A profile of Hamm in the Washington Post seems bound to get people to like him. They shouldn't.”  

• Harold Hamm has also been profiled by DeSmog and HEATED. 

• The anti-fracking movement, led by groups like Americans Against Fracking, seeks to ban fracking “to protect our shared vital resources for future generations.” 

• “Republican, Democrat…I’m an oilocrat, and also I’m a patriot.” –Hamm, 2023

• “America has all the oil and natural gas it needs for decades to come. We are blessed with affordable, reliable, and abundant sources of oil and natural gas. These fuels are foundational to our economic and energy future. Further, we produce it with the best environmental standards in the world. Thanks to clean burning natural gas we enjoy the cleanest air in the industrialized world. To argue otherwise is to ignore common sense and basic math” –Hamm in an “open letter to the American people and their representatives”

• “There have been a lot of disparaging things said about our industry, untrue things.” –Hamm, 2023

• “Our global standing is in decline because of [Biden’s] moves on energy… Biden, from his very first executive orders, has done nothing but make energy prices in this country go up while increasing national security risk.” –Hamm, 2023

• “At these ethanol plants all the CO2 generated is just going out into the air. Why not capture that and sequester it and not pollute the air. It’s the right thing to do.” –Hamm, 2023

• “Every time we can’t drill a well in America, terrorism is being funded. [...] Climate change isn’t our biggest problem. It’s Islamic terrorism.” Hamm, 2016

• "The environmental costs of fossil fuels, as I see it -- in our business, at least, are minimal. We are drilling up there with eco pads, we are not disturbing much of the land. We are very good stewards of the land. We have small costs of these fossil fuels as far as environmental issues go.” –Hamm, 2012

• “While I do not believe the science of global warming is proven or settled, energy efficiency and cost effective deployment of technologies that emit little or no greenhouse gasses, such as wind, solar, and other renewable energy sources are mostly no-brainers. Our priorities should be consideration of the direct causes of global warming and action to correct those conditions which can be affected by mankind. Those conditions include pollution of the world’s streams, rivers, and oceans; clear cutting of vast equatorial rain forests; denuding of the vegetation across Africa; encroachment of deserts in China, Africa, and the Middle East; and general overpopulation conditions of the world.” –Hamm, 2007