Harold Hamm provides the story of his life and a timely ode to American energy independence. There's no book like Game Changer: Our 50-Year Mission to Secure America's Energy Independence (Forefront Books, 2023) by Harold Hamm. The 300-page life story spans not only the history of oil production, but the history of a boy with twelve siblings who grew up in Oklahoma without electricity or indoor plumbing and founded one of the major oil exploration companies in America, Continental Resources. With Democrats calling for more government regulations and renewable energy to deal with this summer's hot weather, there's no better time for the book's publication.
The characters are beautifully described, from Harold Hamm's mother, who showed up for her thirteen kids every day, to his high-school teacher, James Hunter, who survived being shot down by the Germans and then endured multiple prisoner-of-war camps during World War II. Hunter always kept ice cream in his freezer to remind himself that small pleasures in life, and sharing these pleasures with others, do not have to be expensive.
Game Changer is Hamm's first book, and in addition to providing biographical detail, it is an ode to America's energy independence. This is a particularly prescient topic now that the Biden administration is discouraging the use of America's resources and is encouraging reliance on Chinese-made wind turbines, solar panels, and electric batteries for mandatory electric vehicles. Worse still, since Congress would not be able to pass such bills and get them signed into law, President Biden is doing an end-run around our elected representatives and putting policies in place through Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rules.
The book, with 25 short chapters, describes not only the history of the oil industry, but also the benefits that oil has brought to Americans' standards of living. In addition, it is the story of how one man can successfully start a company from nothing and develop it to a market cap of almost $30 billion.
The book has so much information that it would benefit from an index, and perhaps future editions could incorporate one. But it should appeal to a wide group of readers on many levels – those who want to know about oil drilling and energy policy, about how to run a company, and about how to rise from poverty.
The story of oil development in America is a particularly fascinating aspect of the story, and thanks to Hamm's straightforward prose, readers need no background in engineering to understand the progress of the industry. Hamm's history of oil starts with sections of some of his high-school papers, showing how an early passion for the subject can lead to a lifetime career. Then, diagrams show industry innovations and discoveries, including Continental's groundbreaking move from vertical drilling, where one well goes into the ground, to horizontal drilling, where a tube placed horizontally can connect to a series of injections to produce exponentially more oil.
From horizontal drilling, Hamm moves to another Continental innovation, hydraulic fracturing, which gets oil from shale rock. Starting in the Bakken area of Montana and North Dakota, through trial and error, and with tremendous persistence, Hamm's company developed techniques to get oil and natural gas out of the shale. This was the game changer referred to in the book's title.
Later on, Hamm devotes a chapter to the environmental, social, and governmental (ESG) movement sweeping America, which was one reason that he took Continental Resources private in November 2022. When a company is public, institutional shareholders of enough size or with sufficient clout can prevent some oil and gas exploration and require investments in renewables, such as Engine No. 1's success in securing the election of three sympathetic directors to the Exxon board in 2021. A year later, Engine No. 1 wrote, Since the election of Engine No. 1's candidates to the Board, Exxon has taken a multitude of actions to reduce its emissions footprint and has begun to lay the foundations for a viable low-carbon business strategy. Hamm wrote that his company went private because private companies have more freedom to operate and aren't limited by public-market support. It is a depressing sign of our times that he stated, Our belief was that taking Continental private would enhance our ability to maintain our competitive edge and would also enable us to be even more nimble in our efforts to create value through the drill bit.
In a column in July 2022, Capital Matters editor Andrew Stuttaford wrote, It does seem clear that some oil and gas companies will either follow Harold Hamm's example or avoid going public in the first place.
Often, reading autobiographies is a way to see different paths to the future, to escape the predictable confines of a career, to take risks. This is especially true of Game Changer, which shows how Hamm moved from the world of Oklahoma sharecroppers to top echelons of the American business and political world. The book is a tribute to his journey and an inspiration to others who want to be successful and stay true to strong moral principles, without dishonesty or stabbing others in the back.
Hamm's principles are laid out in a chapter called Culture of the Possible from a Wildcatter's Mentality. They include: have an allergy to debt; lead by example; keep it simple; pick good friends and associates; enjoy working hard; and written or not, stick to the deal.
Others, who have not kept to these principles, probably wish that they had. In the end, the message of the book is that we can find success, do good, and be happy – a good message for the future. That is what Harold Hamm did with Continental Resources in oil fields, and it is what each of us can do in our own fields.
Diana Furchtgott-Roth is the director of the Center for Energy, Climate, and Environment at the Heritage Foundation and an adjunct professor of economics at George Washington University.