![]() ![]() Any prediction about reducing dependence on imports is based on expectations that U.S. If the United States is less dependent on imported oil today than it was a few years ago, that has as much to do with lower consumption as it does with higher U.S. One of Obama’s first achievements in office was raising fuel efficiency standards for all American automobiles. That unabashed view of the virtues of oil differs from Obama’s position, which is to reduce oil use for national security purposes as well as to slow the pace of climate change. consumption and fulfill Hamm’s vision of energy independence for America. oil production to 6.7 million barrels a day, a level not seen since 1994, says Barrington Research.Įven that wouldn’t be enough to quench U.S. By 2020, similar geologic formations and drilling techniques could push U.S. ![]() Geological Survey report (now being revised) and more than Prudhoe Bay. ![]() Hamm believes that the Bakken area holds 24 billion barrels, nearly as much as the proven reserves in the rest of the country put together - seven times as much as the most recent U.S. Oil output in North Dakota has jumped sixfold over the past seven years, perhaps the biggest single increase in oil output worldwide, but that hasn’t stopped prices from soaring. It’s been overtaken basically by the technology that’s gone on with horizontal drilling.” He said, “The one of scarcity, that’s just wrong. And the other being one of abundance and what’s really here.” “One of them is that the oil and gas resource is very scarce and running out that the glass is not half full that it is drying up. “There are two separate camps,” Hamm said. Most of all, Hamm promotes a vision of oil plenty. And he supports the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline, which would ease the transportation crunch for North Dakota oil. Such guidelines, he says, should be left to states. Hamm has also criticized the Environmental Protection Agency for rules that will phase in safer, cleaner hydraulic fracturing practices. His rarely updated Web site says, “Since President Obama’s election three and a half years ago, he and his administration have done everything in their power to stop fossil fuel usage.” Hamm, by contrast, has lauded the virtues of keeping tax incentives for oil exploration companies such as his, even as Romney has opposed such incentives for wind energy. The Romney energy team, whose full membership list has not been disclosed, holds weekly conference calls, Hamm says. Hamm is trying to take the lessons of the Oklahoma and North Dakota oil patches and apply them in Washington for the nation’s benefit - and his own. ![]() While super PACs are supposed to be independent, the former cotton picker has also become a member of Romney’s energy advisory team, feeding the candidate optimistic assessments about U.S. He hosted a fundraiser for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign and recently donated $985,000 to Restore Our Future, a super PAC devoted to supporting Romney’s candidacy. His 68 percent stake in the company is currently worth $7.7 billion, and Forbes recently ranked him the world’s 76th-richest person. An early believer in the notion that the techniques of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing could be merged to unlock new layers of oil, he is the chief executive of Continental Resources, the leading exploration company in the booming Bakken Formation, which stretches across Montana, North Dakota and Saskatchewan. Today, the 66-year-old Hamm is a multibillionaire who could buy the entire town several times over. His surviving sister, Fannie, still lives in a modest home here. Since his home had no television, he would go across the street to watch with neighbors. Later, after the family moved to this small town, he delivered newspapers and played baseball in a lot that’s still here. Then he would scramble to catch up in school. As the youngest of a sharecropper’s 13 children, Hamm spent his earliest years nearby picking cotton until the first snowfall or Christmas, whichever came first. Hamm, who grew up just across the tracks, has a lot to savor these days. Harold Hamm sat in a corner of the Railhead Diner, having polished off a plate of meatloaf and savored a bite of the fried pie with chocolate filling. ![]()
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