In case you never knew, the guy above is one of the early pioneers of Shale Gas technology that is driving oil prices down and threatening the Nigeria economy as well as that of the Middle East. The technology has made the US a net importer of Oil in a little over three years making sure they no longer need our Oil.
His name is Harold Hamm and is an America Billionaire and ranked the 28th richest man in America.
Here is how Bloomberg describes him;
The youngest of 13 children born to poor Oklahoma sharecroppers, Hamm got into the oil business at age 18, taking over payments on a used tank truck and borrowing $1,000 to create a one-man oilfield services business in rural Ringwood, Oklahoma.
Four years later, in 1967, he incorporated Shelly Dean Oil and started wildcatting. Shelly Dean was the start of what is now Continental Resources, one of the largest independent exploration and production oil firms in the U.S., and the source of Hamm’s multibillion-dollar fortune.
An early proponent of the Bakken field,Hamm’s company pumped 50 million barrels in 2013, and increased its proved reserves to 1.1 billion barrels, quadruple the amount it reported three years earlier. The Oklahoma City-based company also operates in Texas and Louisiana.
Hamm is the 28th-richest American. He helped develop the use of sideways drilling and hydraulic fracturing. Continental is now the biggest Bakken operator, with a 1.2 million acre leasehold that exceeds even that of Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), the world’s largest energy producer by market value.
