Hamm to Halt Drilling in Bakken Shale on Lower Crude Prices

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.”