Oklahoma oil billionaire Harold Hamm has been appointed energy adviser to Republican primary front-runner Mitt Romney. Hamm is the founder and CEO of Enid-based Continental Resources Inc., and was ranked 36th on Forbes magazine’s list of 400 wealthiest Americans. His 68 percent stake in Continental is valued at $11.2 billion, reports Bloomberg News.
In campaign stops in Tulsa and Oklahoma City yesterday, Newt Gingrich reinforced the pro-religion, anti-regulation red state rallying cry, telling March 6 primary voters he’d undo most of President Barack Obama’s policies. Economically, Gingrich focused specifically on domestic energy expansion, which played well in oil and natural gas-loving Oklahoma.
Income tax and sales tax collections are up, and lawmakers will have about $43 million more to appropriate this year. That’s good news for an upcoming fiscal year with an estimated $100 million hole. But energy industry estimates were too generous. Natural gas prices are down, and anticipated revenues from gross production taxes have been [...]
President Barack Obama’s $3.8 trillion budget, which calls for tax hikes on the affluent and spending to boost economic growth, has set the stage for an election-year showdown with Republicans. It’s a political exercise, and Congress — in typical fashion — will likely ignore much of the president’s proposal. But the president’s budget reflects his [...]
Heads up, Oklahoma energy industry: The federal government is poised to start regulating hydraulic fracturing, a petroleum energy consultant warned Tuesday. “You just know when regulation hits our industry bad things are going to happen,” said the consultant, Richard Spears of Tulsa-based Spears and Associates, reports The Oklahoman’s Jay F. Marks.
Natural gas prices hit a 10-year low last week, and Oklahoma City’s Chesapeake Energy has announced plans to cut gas drilling by nearly half. The Wall Street Journal reports that natural gas prices have declined 45 percent this year, due to a “glut” partly caused by the industry’s own success with horizontal drilling and hydraulic [...]
Oklahoma’s economy should continue to grow, but the expansion could be restrained by the price of natural gas and oil, Oklahoma State University economist and professor Dan Rickman said Tuesday. Rickman spoke at the 2012 Oklahoma Economic Outlook Conference, which was hosted by OSU’s Spears School of Business. The full text of the economic forecasts [...]
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