Doug Burgum, former President Donald Trump's energy advisor and possible choice to be his running mate, is in a land deal with oil and gas giant Continental Resources.
Burgum made up to $50,000 in royalties while he was governor since late 2022 from the deal with Continental Resources, according to his financial disclosure, details of which have not been reported. Burgum endorsed Trump in January, a month after he dropped out of the Republican primary for president. Since then, he has become an adviser to Trump on energy policy and joined a shortlist of contenders to be the former president's running mate.at a meeting at Trump's private club in Florida 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.
"North Dakota is a leading energy producer, including the No. 3 oil producing state. Tens of thousands of families and mineral owners have similar arrangements," Nowatzki said. "As the publicly available disclosures show: The cited agreement began many years before he became governor." Data from North Dakota's Minerals Department shows that the locations of the oil and gas wells matches the coordinates of Burgum's family farm on his business records. The state's data does not identify Burgum's address, but the section where the farm and seven of Continental Resources wells are located within a small township named Brooklyn.
Doug Burgum is a managing partner of the Burgum Farm Partnership, and he signed the businesses' latest annual report in March. Burgum's financial disclosure says the governor is a non managing member and the company is a "family investment" limited liability partnership. Experts note that land holders leasing their property to oil and gas companies can make thousands of dollars more beyond the royalties in bonuses and other payments.
The Burgum contract also says that the family business made money from Continental Resources through one initial down payment called "paid-up" on the lease, with no details provided on how much Burgum and his family saw from that part of the agreement. Since Burgum first ran for governor in 2016, he's disclosed to the North Dakota secretary of state's office that he and his wife Kathryn have a financial interest in over a dozen companies, including Burgum Farm Partnership.
For Trump, Burgum represents a key ally in the oil and gas business, as the former president looks to raise money from the industry's executives.