Hamm to Halt Drilling in Bakken Shale

(Update) January 16, 2026, 3:39 PM GMT: Article updated with context throughout.

Harold Hamm, the billionaire wildcatter who helped kick off the US shale oil revolution, said he’s about to shut down his company’s drilling in North Dakota’s Bakken for the first time in decades because of low crude prices.

“This will be the first time in over 30 years that Harold Hamm has not had an operation with drilling rigs in North Dakota,” Hamm, the founder of shale driller Continental Resources Inc., said in a telephone interview Thursday. “There’s no need to drill it when margins are basically gone.”

It’s a significant milestone for the Bakken. The shale patch in North Dakota is where Hamm, 80, first proved that fracking and horizontal drilling techniques could be successfully applied to previously untouchable oil reserves. The fracking revolution ushered in a new growth era in US oil and the country went on to become the world’s top producer.

Operators in the US shale patch, once the world’s leader in oil production growth, are now closely watching commodity prices as they hover near the level that makes drilling profitable for producers. If prices drop into the low $50-per-barrel range for several months, companies are expected to make more drastic cuts to drilling and fracking. 

While each shale basin has different cost levels, the Bakken in particular is seen as a bellwether for the direction of US crude output. The average well in the Bakken requires a minimum of $58 a barrel to cover costs and generate a small profit, according to a report from BloombergNEF. That’s up almost 4% from a year earlier, largely due to rising drilling expenses.

Meanwhile global oil prices have steadily declined in the past several months on expectations of a glut. West Texas Intermediate, the US benchmark, has fallen 26% over the past year, trading around $60 a barrel Friday.

Even before prices began declining, shale operators started pulling back from drilling new wells over the past year or so because many of the best sites in US basins have already been tapped after years of breakneck growth. Diamondback Energy Inc., one of the biggest pure-play shale producers, said last year that production had likely already peaked in the Permian Basin of West Texas and New Mexico, the US’s most prolific crude region. 

At the same time, tariffs have increased the cost of essential oilfield equipment such as pipe, drilling gear and generators.  

“A lot of people are assessing their activity in all the basins,” said Hamm, who also has oilfield assets in Oklahoma and Texas, among other locations.

The number of rigs drilling across the US has dropped by 15% over the past year, led by the cutting of 60 rigs in the Permian.

Still, Hamm is leaving the door open to return to drilling in the Bakken at some point, depending on prices.

“We’re price takers, as you’re aware — not price makers,” he said with a laugh. “See what we can get.”

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