After announcing a pause in drilling earlier this year in North Dakota, Harold Hamm’s Continental Resources is resuming its efforts in the oil-rich Bakken play that made his company’s name well known in the state.
Hamm made the announcement at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference in Bismarck, saying the company has plans to put drilling crews back to work in North Dakota. The pause had been announced in January and Hamm said at the time it was because of low oil prices. But things have changed and prices are at nearly $100 a barrel in the U.S. The January pause was the first time in 30 years Continental Resources did not have an operating rig in the state, reported the North Dakota Monitor.
Since then, “a great deal has changed,” Hamm said, referring to higher oil prices amid the war with Iran. “We’ll be back to work,” Hamm told attendees. “But we’re not giving it away now.”
He later told the Monitor there is no firm number yet for the number of Continental Resources rigs in the state but it would be “meaningful” and it will be before the end of the year when company crews get back to work. Hamm told the Monitor he also doubts there will be a dramatic drop in crude oil prices even after the Strait of Hormuz is reopened amid the war against Iran.
“I don’t believe that, at all,” Hamm told the North Dakota Monitor. “I think that we’ll get back to realistic values of oil and natural gas.”
The breakeven price for oil companies operating in North Dakota ranges from $50 per barrel to $65 per barrel in West Texas Intermediate prices, depending on the geographic location, Department of Mineral Resources Director Nathan Anderson has said. The WTI price was around $60 around the time the company announced its pause. On Thursday, it was around $100 per barrel.
Hamm said that a minimum oil price in the high $70s or low $80s is a “healthy range” for the industry.
“If you get much lower than that, people curtail their activity,” Hamm said whose company is North Dakota’s No. 2 oil producer.
Hamm’s announcement was welcome news for North Dakota officials including Department of Mineral Resources Director Nathan Anderson.
“The conflict could end tomorrow, but what it tells me is it signals that there’s some certainty around a little higher price for a little bit longer,” said Anderson, the state’s top oil regulator. “I’ve heard not only Continental, I’ve heard another company that’s going to pick up another rig.”
