Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump shakes hands with North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum and Vivek Ramaswamy (left) during a campaign rally at the Margate Resort in Laconia, New Hampshire, Monday, January 22, 2024. Mr.
Javin Botsford | Washington Post | Getty Images
The two have developed a friendship outside of business. Burgum recently contributed a rave blurb to Hamm's new memoir. And in his 2023 State of the State address, Burgum compared Hamm favorably to President Theodore Roosevelt, a man whose “grit, resilience, hard work, and determination changed North Dakota and our country.” It was evaluated as being.
But Burgum has a more personal connection to Continental. Mr. Burgum's family leases 200 acres of farmland in Williams County to an energy giant for pumping oil and gas, according to previously unreported business records and federal financial disclosure reports.
Burgum earned up to $50,000 in royalties from a contract with Continental Resources while serving as governor starting in late 2022, according to his financial disclosures, which details were not reported.
Experts told CNBC that Burgum and his family's company may have made thousands of dollars more from contracts with Continental Resources since they signed the deal in 2009. It is said to have a high level of sexuality.
The Burgum-Continental connection highlights one of the potential risks of Trump choosing a running mate who has been private for most of his adult life.
Mr. Burgum never faced the kind of scrutiny that someone like Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida received, and Mr. Rubio emerged from it politically unscathed.
Burgum endorsed Trump in January, a month after he dropped out of the Republican presidential primary, and has since become an energy policy adviser to Trump and is on his shortlist to be his running mate.
Hamm, meanwhile, is one of Trump's biggest supporters in the industry. According to reports, Mr. Burgum, Mr. Hamm and other industry supporters attended a meeting at Mr. Trump's private club in Mar-a-Lago, Florida. At the meeting, Trump called on oil and gas industry executives to donate $1 billion to his campaign in exchange for plans to roll back environmental regulations.
According to the invitation, Hamm will co-host an event for Trump on May 22, organized by the former president's political action committee, Make American Great Again.
Continental Resources donated $1 million to a super PAC in April, according to Federal Election Commission records. Hamm donated $614,000 to the Trump 47 Committee in March.
The original contract between Burgum Farm Partnership and Continental Resources was signed by the governor's late brother, Bradley Burgum, according to ground lease documents reviewed by CNBC.
Burgum spokesman Mike Nowatzki told CNBC the contract was developed several years before the governor was sworn in in 2017.
“North Dakota is a major energy producer, including the third largest oil producing state. Tens of thousands of families and mineral owners have similar arrangements,” Nowatzki said. “Publicly available information shows that the agreements cited began years before he became governor.”
Nowatzki declined to answer specific questions about the deal, Burgum's role in the family business or his relationship with Hamm.
Spokespeople for Continental Resources and its executive chairman, Hamm, did not respond to requests for comment. A Trump campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment.
CNBC obtained Mr. Burgum's personal financial disclosures through a request to the Federal Election Commission. His business records were obtained through the North Dakota Secretary of State's Office.
Data from the North Dakota Department of Minerals shows the locations of the oil and gas wells match the coordinates of the family farm on Burgum's business records. State data does not specify Mr. Burgum's address, but it does identify a parcel in the small town of Brooklyn that includes a farm and seven Continental Resources wells.
All seven wells have been in operation since 2011, just two years after Burgum's family signed a contract with Continental Resources. These wells produced more than 5,000 barrels of oil and thousands of cubic feet of natural gas in March alone, according to the latest data from Drilling Edge. It is unclear how many of the seven wells are located directly on the Burgum property.
Burkum was elected governor in 2016 and re-elected to a second term in 2020, but is not running for re-election in 2024.
Burgum Farm Partnership LLP, which oversees family farmland in Williams and Cass counties, has assets valued between $501,001 and $1 million, according to financial disclosures.
Doug Burgum is the managing partner of Burgum Farm Partnership and signed the company's most recent annual report in March. According to Burgum's financial disclosures, the governor is a non-management member and the company is a “family investment” limited liability partnership.
The company's annual report, filed with the Secretary of State's Office in April, lists Burgum, his late brother's children, his sister Barbara and three of his own adult children as managing partners in the family business.
The oil and gas land deal provides Burgum Farm Partnership with 19% of the proceeds of oil and gas sold by Continental after Continental Resources pumps it from Burgum's property, according to experts who reviewed contracts and records. It is said that it will.
“The Burgum Farm Partnership will receive 19% of the proceeds,” Edward Haas, an energy researcher at the University of Houston, said in an email after reviewing the agreement. “The bigger advantage is that the Burgum Farm Partnership does not have to invest money to drill wells and collect hydrocarbons (no pipes, tanks, roads).”
According to the agreement, royalty payments will be made monthly and quarterly.
The sun sets behind Pump Jack on a gusty night in Fort Stockton, Texas, March 24, 2024.
Brandon Bell | Getty Images
Landowners who lease their property to oil and gas companies can potentially earn thousands more in bonuses and other payments on top of royalties, experts say.
“The company typically offers landowners a 'bonus' (usually hundreds or thousands of dollars per acre, depending on the heat of the market) for signing a lease,” said Jack Balazia, an adjunct professor at the University of Texas. ). Former general counsel of ExxonMobil.
Ryan Kellogg, a professor at the University of Chicago who reviewed the contract, said the document only shows a low range of the amount paid and does not disclose the details of the bonus to Burgum Farms.
“Upfront bonuses are not disclosed,” Kellogg said. “Although it only says '$10 or more,' the 'more' part could potentially be a large amount. Bonuses are rarely disclosed in rental agreements,” Kellogg said. says.
Burgum's contract also states that the family-owned business received a benefit from Continental Resources through a one-time down payment known as a “paid up” on the lease, but Burgum and his family did not agree to the contract. No details are given as to how much profit was made from that part of the book.
“Pay-up means a lease where all cash for the term of the lease is paid upfront, whereas a rental-style means a down payment followed by an annual rental payment,” says Ted, a part-time employee.・Mr. Borrego stated. Professor at the University of Houston Law Center.
Government ethics experts say new details about Mr. Burgum's Continental lease agreement mean that if Mr. Burgum helped implement President Trump's energy policy as vice president or in the cabinet, his work would be privately linked to the North Dakota governor. This highlights the fact that there is potential for benefits. and his family.
Virginia Canter, chief ethics adviser at the watchdog group Citizens, said, “If Trump is re-elected and Burgum is chosen to play an administration role in implementing Trump's energy policy, Burgum's oil・There may be concerns about serious conflicts of interest regarding gas leases.” in the field of responsibility and ethics in Washington.
President Trump said one of his first actions after taking office, if elected, would be to implement a “Drill Baby Drill” energy policy and delay federal drilling permits and leases for U.S. oil and natural gas production. I promised to put an end to it.
“For example, significant conflict of interest concerns would arise if implementation of these policies affected the value of Mr. Burgum's rental real estate interests, oil and gas leases, or royalties he receives from Continental Resources.” said Kanter.
North Dakota Governor Doug Burgum encouraged 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, on January 22, 2024.
Chip Somodevilla | Getty Images
Neither of Burgum's two financial disclosures from his successful gubernatorial run disclosed any land deals with Continental Resources. North Dakota requires state legislative candidates to only disclose the names of businesses that do not serve as their primary source of income. No other details need 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 wife, Katherine, have financial interests in more than 10 companies, including the Burgum Farm Partnership. It is clear that he has it.
But those three pages of state records do not specify how much financial interest they have in these companies or what profits they derive from their operations. .
Candidates for president or Congress must disclose more details, including the range of income from each asset over the past 12 months.
Burgum's 26-page federal disclosure report reveals numerous private LLCs, partnerships and assets. With a net worth well into the hundreds of millions of dollars, Continental Leasing is only a small part of Burgum's income stream.
In the end, it may not matter to President Trump whether Burgum is sufficiently vetted if the governor is who he wants on his ticket.
Mr. Burgum is Mr. Trump's key ally in the oil and gas industry, and Mr. Burgum is seeking to raise money from industry executives.
Dan Everhart, who runs the oil and gas drilling company Canary, said the Trump-Burgum ticket could help accomplish this.
“Choosing Burgum would bring more industry donors into Trump's orbit,” Everhart said in a recent interview.
“Nominating Mr. Burgum as vice president will send a strong signal to the industry that we will have an important voice in a potential Trump administration,” he added.
U.S. President Donald Trump greets Harold Hamm after being introduced by him at the Shale Insight 2019 conference held in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States on October 23, 2019.
Leah Millis | Reuters
Government ethics watchdogs are also beginning to focus on Trump's ties to Mr. Hamm, Mr. Burgum and other figures connected to the oil and gas industry.
“The fact that Mr. Burgum has revenue-generating oil and gas leases with Continental Resources raises concerns in itself, as Harold Hamm, executive chairman of Continental Mr. Trump asked for $1 billion in financing from the attendees at the Mar-a-Lago meeting last month, because he is participating in this deal with gas executives and Mr. Burgum,'' Mr. Canter said.
“Under these circumstances, Mr. Burgum is in a unique position to benefit both economically and politically, depending on whether he can bring something to the table that is in the respective interests of Mr. Trump and Mr. Hamm. “It seems like it is,” she said.
Hamm's company has had extensive operations in North Dakota for more than a decade, and the state ranks among the top three oil producing states.
In 2022, Ham announced that Continental Resources would invest $250 million in a 2,000-mile pipeline to capture carbon dioxide, pump it underground and store it in North Dakota. Last year, Ham donated $50 million to the North Dakota-based library.
Hamm's alliance with Burgum predates Continental Resources' contributions to a political action committee supporting the North Dakota governor in his presidential run. The company donated $250,000 in July to the Best of America political action committee, which supports Burgum, according to Federal Election Commission filings.
Burgum's gubernatorial bid regularly receives support from other oil and gas industry executives, according to nonpartisan Open Secrets data.
Burgum ran a successful gubernatorial campaign in 2020, receiving more than $35,000 in funding from oil and gas industry insiders. This amount is second only to the more than $1 million that Mr. Burgum has poured into his campaign.
