2025 Hamm Summit Goal: Make US NatGas ‘Hero’ for Powergen

The task this spring at the Hamm Institute for American Energy’s summit: Put tech, powergen and natural gas leaders at a table—along with federal, state and local office-holders—and make sure the U.S. doesn’t lose the AI race.

“Who would have thought just three years ago that natural gas is going to be the hero for AI?” Ann Bluntzer Pullin, executive director of the institute at Oklahoma State University, told Hart Energy.

“We were not having this conversation two years ago. This wasn't even a topic at events two years ago. This is a crossroads we have found ourselves at.”

The summit is a gathering of White House cabinet members, policy-makers, oil and gas producers and consumers, and finance and international executives among others who assemble to solve critical energy issues.

In 2023, the task at the institute’s summit was to remove the above-ground—i.e., political—obstacles to U.S. energy development and production.

In January, the more than 300 attendees checked the “Done” box on that task as President Trump returned to the White House.

Newly named Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, who was North Dakota’s governor during the 2023 summit, was among the speakers.

Newly named Energy Secretary Chris Wright, at the time leading oilfield-services and frac-technology development firm Liberty Energy, was among attendees.

This year, the institute, formed by Continental Resources founder Harold Hamm, will convene E&P and powergen executives with their counterparts at Google, Amazon, Meta, Nvidia and other tech firms.

Nuclear and space were the U.S.’ largest recent domestic-security races.

Today, wining the AI race has been considered similar in determining the next-century trajectory of the U.S.’ position at the world table.

“It is a phenomenal opportunity here that our industry has to take advantage of. We have to get this right,” Bluntzer Pullin said.

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Joining the institute in the summer of 2024, Bluntzer Pullin was previously with Texas Christian University, the University of South Carolina, Texas A&M University and the University of Jakarta.

While working in the State Department’s Foreign Agriculture Service, she had assignments in Poland, Lithuania, Indonesia and Australia.

She received her bachelor’s in agricultural development and a master’s in leadership and international studies from Texas A&M, and a doctorate in organizational management and education administration from the University of South Carolina

Hart Energy spoke with her recently as plans for the 2025 summit, which will be held April 23-24 in Oklahoma City, were underway.

Nissa Darbonne: In 2023, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, Doug Burgum, Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth, Occidental Petroleum President and CEO Vicki Hollub and others spoke. The goal was to solve surface impediments that drive U.S. E&P costs higher and result in resources being stranded due to lack of permit or takeaway.

Ann Bluntzer Pullin: The institute is laser-focused on energy security and what that means for America and its allies. You [referenced] permitting and how that's been solved.

Not really.

The United States government has a lot of silos. And even though they're all speaking the same language, there's going to be a lot of work to make sure the permitting reform can happen. That is Interior talking to Energy and Energy talking to Agriculture and Ag talking to the EPA [Environmental Protection Agency].

Those things are happening, which is exciting. But it is a process.

ND: Energy security involves a lot more than having oil and gas, of course. It also involves having a power grid that is built out to meet this new ask from generative AI. Current stock and bond markets are such that investment decisions are very difficult to make in on-again-off-again tariffs. How does the institute see the U.S. achieving electric-power energy security while there is all of this noise?

ABP: Our framework for making sure energy security [remains in] the conversation—for our industry to survive, honestly—is going to hyperfocus on a sustained alignment.

This is not only something that we don't want to lose, but for America's sake, we want to continue to lead in this conversation of being able to provide the power that the world deserves.

ND: Power for many uses but, in particular, for AI?

ABP: What everyone’s talking about right now is AI and the data centers and what that's going to do to [power] demand.

I think everybody in the world will agree this is the technology that's going to transform lives. It's going to transform manufacturing. It’s going to transform all the different industry verticals. It's going to transform the way we communicate. It is truly a game-changer.

So if we don't figure out how to make sure the proper supply is there to make sure we can feed the demand for what is needed to power artificial intelligence, then we've lost the race.

And the way that we win it is energy security and keeping all of those different silos or pillars aligned. We’re aiming to do that.

ND: Oil is around $60, which is below breakeven for new-play exploration for many producers. But the gas strip is holding in the high $3s, which is doable to at least sustain the current level of supply among many operators. Estimates are that powergen for AI will make a roughly 10 Bcf/d call on natgas in the coming few years.

ABP: Natural gas is going to be the primary winner here, the primary solution to help make sure we meet that power demand.

At the Hamm Institute, we’re also looking at nuclear and geothermal and all the other solutions as well.

But realistically, we know natgas is going to be the quickest thing we can do, the most affordable. And now that we know how to do it cleanly, it becomes a clear winner.

How do we make sure that the volatility of that price is something that operators and business people can sustain? That’s a million-dollar question, I agree. We need to figure that out.

One solution we'll continue to put forth, and I would think the producers would align with, is how do we keep the cost of supply down? Are we asking the right questions to come up with the solutions? Have we truly talked about the impact of the tariffs on this kind of commodity?

Have we truly talked about the lack of capital that has gone into the R&D space in this?

We haven't invested heavily for probably 20-plus years on innovative techniques to be able to push the oil and natural gas community forward in a way that can make sure cost of supply stays down. We invested it in a lot of other energy sources over the past two decades.

I think we're paying the price of that now because, if we can keep the cost of supply down, we're able to weather these volatile storms of price variation. I think every producer wants that.

I think we probably need to be spending not only at higher-ed institutions, but in government research labs and in the R&D labs industry has internally.

That should be first and foremost because, if we can figure out that economic piece, all these other things aren't quite as significant when they do happen and you can come out at least a little bit ahead of what the cost is and, ideally, even be able to have a profitable business.

ND: Bringing the “cost of supply” down in terms of what it costs the producer to produce a Btu, such as overcoming permitting hurdles? Rather than lowering “cost of supply” in terms of what producers earn for their Btu’s?

ABP: Yes, 100%. You could come up with 300 things that make up that list of what is in the cost and there are opportunities to cut that in almost every lane. It's really important to highlight.

The lack of investment in the oil and gas space in regard to research has really hurt us. The innovation from research could possibly be helping the producer keep costs down and the consumer to benefit from.

I do think that's going to be unleashed in this administration.

That’s a benefit of this current Energy Department and the Interior Department. They do believe in that and we're excited to try to help them come up with some ideas from the industry perspective that will allow that reinvestment back into the oil and natural gas industry.

ND: Do you include small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear and geothermal R&D in this?

ABP: We could have, as a government, done a lot more to invest in geothermal. Where the previous administrations were putting subsidy dollars, most people would agree that geothermal was a big miss and they should have done more in that space.

And obviously figuring out how to get [SMR] nuclear to the consumer in a way that is faster than what we're looking at.

The technology's proven. But the timeline on when we're going to get it and how much it is truly going to cost [is uncertain]. There are a lot of unknowns in that equation. It’s obviously an excellent return in regard to the amount of power you're getting from [SMR] technology.

But when you put the economics behind it and the timeline behind it, it isn't the solution we need right now. We need to put more money into supporting the R&D around geothermal and [SMR] nuclear instead of turning our back to it.

ND: This is much work to be done in [the summit’s] two days.

ABP: The summit isn't just a meeting. We see it as a mission to make sure that we have the right people in the room to help solve these important problems.

We have all of the senior leadership coming here that are the nation's largest natural gas producers, sitting across a table with the tech industry.

And then also some of the best utility providers in the country in different regions of the U.S. to talk about the infrastructure challenges. And then governors and other leaders.

It’s an unprecedented event to bring those different pillars together to try to find these solutions.

I can't think of a more critical issue of our time than this right now.

We're honored to be in a place where we can hopefully use our legacy and our relationships in a positive way to help move the needle forward and get more affordable energy to the rest of the world so we can power the technology we all need.

I don't think we can afford as a country to not get this right.