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Shale-oil executives assailed President Donald Trump’s trade policies in an anonymous survey, saying his barrage of tariffs were sowing confusion and undermining his goal to unleash America’s energy might.
“The administration’s chaos is a disaster for the commodity markets,” one executive said in the report released Wednesday by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas. “’Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn’t have a clear goal.”
The Dallas Fed’s quarterly survey is widely read within the oil industry because it allows executives to offer their unfiltered views without having to include their names or companies. Their critiques of government policies are often unsparing. Yet the most recent edition — the first of Trump’s second term — was especially striking given the full-throated nature and volume of complaints.
“Yikes,” Timm Schneider, a veteran energy analyst and founder of The Schneider Capital Group, wrote in a note to clients. “Never seen the comments box this plentiful and we look at all of these when they come out.”
The bank’s survey included 130 oil and gas firms from across Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico. It found the average price for West Texas Intermediate that companies need to profitably drill rose to $65 a barrel, up from $64 from last year. Meanwhile, most executives surveyed from oil service companies expect Trump’s 25% tariff on steel to slightly decrease demand from customers this year.
“I have never felt more uncertainty about our business in my entire 40-plus-year career,” one executive said in the survey.
“Geopolitical risk and economic uncertainty continue to cloud our picture looking forward,” another said.
“The rhetoric from the current administration is not helpful,” a third executive said. “If the oil price continues to drop, we will shut in production.”
“This is not ‘energy dominance,’” another said.
— With assistance from David Wethe
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