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Photograph by Mark Mahaney

By Bryan Gruley

Map: The Bakken Shale Formation Photograph by Mark Mahaney

Harold G. Hamm is lost. The 66-year-old founder, chairman, and chief executive of Continental Resources is steering a Chevy Tahoe past sunflower fields and grazing cows in western North Dakota. He’s found millions of barrels of oil in these low prairie hills, but on this bright fall day, he’s having trouble locating one of his own drilling rigs.

In the back seat, Hamm’s public-relations handler uses her smartphone to get their bearings. “So, we go three miles east, five north,” Hamm says in his Oklahoma drawl. “Got it.”...