US President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a meeting with House Republicans at the Hyatt Regency hotel in Washington, DC on November 13, 2024.
Allison Robbert | AFP | Getty Images
The oil and gas industry has a “to do” list for President-elect Donald Trump.
The lobby group American Petroleum Institute has asked Trump to swiftly authorize liquefied natural gas exports, expand drilling on federal lands, make pipeline permitting easier, repeal strict vehicle emissions and fuel economy standards, and keep current corporate tax rates in place.
This five-point road map is how the industry sees Trump’s three-word slogan “drill, baby, drill” translating into concrete policy. Trump told NBC News in an interview that aired Sunday that he intends to sign executive orders related to energy when he takes office on Jan. 20, without providing further detail.
Trump is setting up a National Energy Council that he says will oversee a path to U.S. energy dominance by cutting red tape. His pick for Interior secretary, North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum, will chair the council and also have a seat on the National Security Council.
The council will consist of all federal agencies involved in permitting, production, generation, distribution and regulation of energy, Burgum said in a statement after Trump selected him for the position.
“What they are envisioning for the Energy Council is the whole-of-government approach for energy security,” API President Mike Sommers said of the incoming administration. The council should focus on making sure enough infrastructure and production is in place to protect U.S. energy security for the next 25 years, Sommers said.
Trump’s pick for Energy secretary, Liberty Energy CEO Chris Wright, will also serve on the council. The president-elect’s selection of Burgum and Wright indicates the administration intends to slash regulation deeply, according Kevin Book, managing director of ClearView Energy Partners, an energy research firm.
Burgum and Wright are associated with smaller, independent oil and gas companies that prefer deeper deregulation because compliance weighs on them more than the bigger players, Book said.
Wright’s Liberty Energy is a relatively small oilfield services firm with a market capitalization of $2.8 billion. Burgum leads a state in which fossil fuel production makes up a significant portion of its gross domestic product and many of the oil and gas operators are smaller companies, Book said.
“You probably find a more independent oil and gas company voice in the selection of Chris Wright for Energy secretary and with probably a deeper deregulatory bent as a consequence,” Book said. It is probably safe to say Burgum shares this view, the analyst said.
More LNG exports, drilling
The stated mission of Trump’s council is energy dominance, but the U.S. has been producing more oil than any country in history for six years in a row now, according to Department of Energy data. And the U.S. was the world’s largest exporter of natural gas in 2023, according to DOE data.
Book believes the incoming Trump administration is making a play to further increase the U.S. share of the global oil and gas market against OPEC and other producers.
“The question is what can this council actually do to improve market share, to improve the U.S. competitive position relative to other hydrocarbon producers in the world,” the analyst said.
API wants Trump to lift the pause on new LNG export projects on his first day in office and quickly process pending applications to export LNG. The Biden administration imposed the pause to review the environmental and economic impact of LNG exports.
The group also wants the incoming administration to increase federal leases to develop offshore and onshore oil and gas patches in New Mexico, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska.
The Biden administration offered the fewest offshore oil and gas leases in U.S. history under a plan that allowed companies to drill in a maximum of three new areas exclusively in the Gulf of Mexico through 2029, according to the Interior Department.
“These are 30- to 40-year production leases,” Sommers said. “We need that inventory now so that we can continue to produce for the future.”
More leases to develop production may increase supplies over the medium to long term, but investment decisions ultimately depend on the supply and demand fundamentals in the oil market, said Bob McNally, who served as an energy advisor to President George W. Bush.
Presidents can “kneecap production” by making bad policy choices, but there’s little they can do to increase output quickly, said McNally, founder and president of Rapidan Energy Group.
“In the grand scheme of things, how much gets invested in production depends a lot more on the price of oil, which the president has virtually no control over,” McNally said.