Trump VP prospect Doug Burgum and GOP oil baron Harold Hamm are allies in business and politics

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum as Vivek Ramaswamy, left, watches at a campaign rally at The Margate Resort in Laconia, New Hampshire, Jan. 22, 2024.

Jabin Botsford | The Washington Post | Getty Images

If former President Donald Trump taps North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum to be his running mate, the biggest beneficiary of the partnership could possibly be another person entirely: Harold Hamm the billionaire founder and executive chairman of shale oil drilling giant Continental Resources, who could end up with two powerful allies in a Trump White House.

Burgum’s ties to Hamm and the shale oil drilling company he founded are significant. Continental is a major oil and gas leaseholder in North Dakota, where oil and gas is the largest industry by revenue.

The two men also have a friendship outside of business: Burgum not long ago contributed a rave review blurb to Hamm’s new memoir. And during his 2023 state of the state address, Burgum compared Hamm favorably to President Theodore Roosevelt, describing Hamm as a person “whose grit, resilience, labor and optimism has changed North Dakota and our nation.”

However Burgum has an additional personal link to Continental: Burgum’s family leases 200 acres of farmland in Williams County to the energy company for the firm to pump oil and gas, according to previously unreported business records and a federal financial disclosure report.

Burgum has made as much as $50,000 in royalties since 2022, while he’s been governor, from the model out Continental Sources, per his financial disclosure, details of which have not been reported.

Experts told CNBC that Burgum and his family business likely made hundreds of thousands more from the agreement with Continental Resources since signing a contract with the firm in 2009.

This connection between Burgum and Continental highlights one of the potential risks for Trump in selecting a running mate who has spent most of his adult life in private industry.

Burgum has never faced the kind of scrutiny that someone like Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., has endured, from which Rubio has emerged politically unscathed.

Burgum endorsed Trump in January, a month after he withdrew from the Republican primary for president. Since then, he has become an advisor to Trump on energy policy and joined a shortlist of contenders to be the former president’s running mate.

Hamm, meanwhile, is one of Trump’s biggest supporters in the industry. Burgum, Hamm and various industry advocates were reportedly at a meeting at Trump’s personal Florida club, Mar-a-Lago, where the former president called on oil and gas executives to donate $1 billion to his campaign in exchange for his plan to roll back environmental regulations.

Hamm is co-hosting an match for Trump that’s backed by the former president’s political action committee, Map The US Mountainous All but again Inc., on Would possibly per chance 22, per an invitation.

Continental Resources donated $1 million to the super PAC in April, per Federal Election Commission records. Hamm gave $614,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in March.

The original agreement between the Burgum Farm Partnership and Continental Resources was signed by Bradley Burgum, the governor’s twin brother, per a land lease reviewed by CNBC.

Burgum spokesman Mike Nowatzki told CNBC the contract was drawn up years before the governor was sworn into office in 2017.

“North Dakota is a leading energy producer, alongside the No. 3 oil-producing state. Tens of thousands of households and mineral owners have similar arrangements,” Nowatzki said. “As the publicly available disclosures show: The cited agreement began many years before he became governor.”

Nowatzki did not respond to questions about the deal, Burgum’s purpose with the family business or his relationship with Hamm.

A spokeswoman for both Continental Resources and Hamm did not respond to a request for comment. A spokesman for the Trump campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

CNBC obtained Burgum’s personal financial disclosure by filing a request with the Federal Election Commission. His alternate records were received through the North Dakota secretary of state’s office.

Information from North Dakota’s Minerals Division shows that the locations of the oil and gas wells matches the coordinates of Burgum’s family farm on his alternate records. The narrate’s knowledge would not title Burgum’s address, however the space the put the farm and 7 of Continental Sources wells are positioned is within a minute township named Brooklyn.

All seven wells have been active since 2011, just two years after Burgum’s family signed an agreement with Continental Resources. The wells produced over 5,000 barrels of oil and hundreds of cubic feet of natural gas in March alone, according to the most recent data from Drilling Edge. It is unclear how many of the seven wells are located directly on the Burgum property.

Burgum became elected governor in 2016 and reelected to a 2nd term in 2020. He’s no longer running for reelection in 2024.

The Burgum Farm Partnership LLP, which oversees the family farm land in Williams County and Cass County, is worth between $500,001 and $1 million, according to the financial disclosure.

Doug Burgum is a managing partner of the Burgum Farm Partnership, and he signed the company’s most recent annual report in March. Burgum’s financial disclosure says the governor is a non-managing member and the firm is a “family investment” limited liability partnership.

The firm’s annual report that was filed with the secretary of state’s office in April lists Burgum, his late brother’s two children, his sister Barbara, and his three adult children as managing partners of the family business.

The oil and gas land deal says Continental Resources provides the Burgum Farm Partnership 19% of the proceeds from the gross sales of oil and gas Continental sold after it’s pumped from the Burgum property, according to the contract and experts who reviewed the records.

The larger point is that the Burgum Farm Partnership would not want to invest any money to drill the wells, procure the hydrocarbons (no pipes, no tanks, no roads), Edward Hirs, an energy fellow at the University of Houston, said in an email after reviewing the contract.

The royalty payments are made in monthly and quarterly installments, per the agreement.

The sun sets behind a pumpjack during a gusty night in Fort Stockton, Texas, March 24, 2024.

Brandon Bell | Getty Images

Experts say landowners leasing their property to oil and gas companies can earn hundreds of dollars extra beyond royalties in bonuses and other payments.

“The firm will normally pay the landowner a ‘bonus’ for signing the lease (typically a few hundred or thousands of dollars per acre, depending on how hot the market may be),” said Jack Balagia, an adjunct professor at the University of Texas and former general counsel for Exxon Mobil.

Ryan Kellogg, a professor at the University of Chicago who reviewed the contract, stated the document would not convey the fine print of a bonus to the Burgum farm firm, except to provide a low range of how much was paid.

“The up-front bonus payment is not disclosed,” Kellogg stated. “It is simply listed as ‘$10 and extra’ where the ‘extra’ is likely significant. Bonuses are almost never disclosed in leases.”

The Burgum contract also says that the family made money from Continental Sources through one preliminary down payment known as “paid-up” on the rent, with no details provided on how much Burgum and his family received from that section of the agreement.

“By paid-up,[we mean]a rent where all money for the term of the rent is paid upfront, and by a condo model, we mean one with a down payment and rent payments yearly after that,” stated Ted Borrego, an adjunct professor at the University of Houston Law Center.

Government ethics experts say the new details on Burgum’s Continental lease deal underscore the reality that if Burgum were to serve in a Trump administration — either as his vice president or in a Cabinet position — his work could potentially benefit the North Dakota governor and his family.

“There are definitely major conflict of interest concerns regarding Mr. Burgum’s oil and gas leases if Trump were to be reelected and Burgum chosen to serve in an administration role” in enforcing Trump’s energy policies, stated Virginia Canter, chief ethics counsel for watchdog Voters for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Trump has promised that one of his first acts in office, if he’s elected, will likely be to implement a “drill, baby, drill” energy policy and halt delays in federal drilling permits and leases for American oil and natural gas production.

“A major conflict of interest would arise, we could say, if implementation of those policies would affect the value of Burgum’s leased property interests, his oil and gas leases or the royalties he receives from Continental Resources,” stated Canter.

North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum encourages voters to support Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump during a campaign rally in the basement ballroom of The Margate Resort in Laconia, New Hampshire, Jan. 22, 2024.

Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images

Neither of Burgum’s two financial disclosures from his successful runs for governor show a land model out of Continental Sources. North Dakota requires candidates for state office to disclose only the names of corporations that do not act as their primary source of income. No other details are required to be disclosed.

Since Burgum first ran for governor in 2016, he has disclosed to the North Dakota secretary of state’s office that he and his partner, Kathryn, have a financial interest in more than a dozen corporations, including Burgum Farm Partnership.

However, those three-page state records do not specify how much of a financial interest they have in these corporations nor any money they receive from those corporations.

A candidate for president or Congress is required to convey many extra minute print, at the side of a form of earnings from every of their property at some stage in the earlier 365 days.

Burgum’s federal disclosure filing spans 26 pages and reveals numerous closely held LLCs, partnerships, and properties. Given Burgum’s net worth in the hundreds of millions, the Continental lease represents only a small portion of his income streams.

In a roundabout way, it doesn’t matter to Trump whether Burgum has been fully vetted if the governor is the person he wants on his ticket.

For Trump, Burgum represents a key ally in the oil and gas industry, as the former president appears to be seeking money from the industry’s executives.

Dan Eberhart, who runs oil and gas drilling firm Canary, stated a Trump/Burgum ticket would possibly help to achieve this.

“Picking Burgum would bring more industry donors to Trump’s orbit,” Eberhart stated in a recent interview.

“Nominating Burgum as VP would send a strong signal to the industry that we’d have a significant voice in a potential Trump administration,” he added.

President Donald Trump greets Harold Hamm after he was honored by Hamm at the Shale Perception 2019 Conference in Pittsburgh, Oct. 23, 2019.

Leah Millis | Reuters

Government ethics watchdogs have also started to take note of the relationship between Trump, Hamm, Burgum and others linked to the oil and gas industry.

“The fact that Mr. Burgum has an income-producing, oil and gas lease affiliation with Continental Resources itself raises its own concerns, since Continental Resources’ executive chairman, Harold Hamm, recently participated with various oil and gas executives and Mr. Burgum in the Mar-a-Lago meeting Mr. Trump held last month seeking $1 billion in fundraising from those in attendance,” said Canter.

“Under these circumstances, Mr. Burgum appears to be uniquely positioned to benefit himself both financially and politically depending on what he is able to bring to the table that could serve the respective interests of Trump and Hamm,” she said.

Hamm’s firm has had extensive operations in North Dakota for over a decade, and the story is ranked in the top three states for oil production.

In 2022, Hamm announced Continental Resources was investing $250 million into a pipeline that spanned 2,000 miles to capture carbon dioxide and pump it underground for storage in North Dakota. Last year, Hamm donated $50 million to a planned library in North Dakota honoring Roosevelt.

Hamm’s alliance with Burgum preceded a donation Continental Resources made to a PAC that backed the North Dakota governor when he ran for president. The firm gave $250,000 to the pro-Burgum Best of America PAC in July, per FEC filings.

Burgum’s gubernatorial campaign has long been backed by various executives in the oil and gas industry, according to data from the nonpartisan OpenSecrets.

Burgum’s successful campaign for governor in 2020 purchased bigger than $35,000 from those in the oil and gas alternate. That amount is 2nd most effective to the bigger than $1 million Burgum effect into his campaign.

Correction: This story has been updated to reflect the correct spelling of Map The US Mountainous All but again Inc. and the correct spelling of Ryan Kellogg’s title.