In this newsletter:
1) What a second Trump term could mean for US oil and gas
Oil & Company News, 16 January 2024
2) 'Drill, baby, drill!' Americans by wide margin back Trump's greenlighting of oil and gas projects
Daily Mail, 12 January 2024
3) No more going wobbly in climate fight, Trump supporters vow
Politico, 12 January 2024
4) Matthew Lynn: America’s energy boom lays bare the madness of Net Zero
The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2024
5) Capell Aris: Are Labour sleepwalking to energy disaster?
Net Zero Watch, 23 January 2024
6) Senior Tories have blasted 'Trojan Horse' Net Zero agenda after Tata Steel announced it is axing 2,500 jobs
Daily Mail, 21 January 2024
7) Electric cars will never dominate market, says Toyota
Bloomberg, 23 January 2024
8) Mark Carney’s Net Zero alliance facing overhaul after ‘anti-woke’ backlash
The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2024
9) Governments fail to agree timeline for climate science reports in fraught IPCC talks
Climate Change Home, 22 January 2024
10) And finally: EU must invest about €1.5tn a year to meet Net Zero targets, says Brussels
Financial Times, 23 January 2024
Full details:
1) What a second Trump term could mean for US oil and gas
Oil & Company News, 16 January 2024
A change of administration would mean a radical shift in energy policy for the US.
“Nothing is more uncertain than the general public,” the Roman orator Cicero said, and it is as true now as it was in 62 BCE. The next US presidential election is still almost 10 months away, on 5 November, and we can expect plenty of twists and turns in the race before then. As the polling stands, however, former President Donald Trump is well-placed to secure a second term. Prediction markets, which have no supernatural powers but usefully summarise the conventional wisdom, have Trump as the clear favourite to enter the White House a little over year from now.
A change of administration would mean a radical shift in energy policy for the US. Setting aside for now the question of the consequences for low-carbon sectors, which will be the focus of a future Energy Pulse, a second Trump administration would also have significant implications for the oil and gas industry.
A US president’s powers to affect oil and gas production one way or the other are often over-estimated. President Joe Biden said on the campaign trail in 2020: “I would transition from the oil industry… [it] has to be replaced by renewable energy over time.” But during his administration US crude production has hit a new record high, at over 13 million barrels per day. (To be fair, the administration did shift its stance in 2022 to encourage increased production, but its rhetoric in that direction has not had any material impact, either.)
However, there are levers that a second Trump administration could pull to help the oil and gas industry and have a positive effect on production at the margin. In his campaigning, Trump has identified boosting oil and gas output as a priority. He has said in public appearances that he wanted to be “a dictator for one day” to address two issues: “for drilling and for closing the border.”
Those comments point to the use of executive actions and rule changes to lighten the regulatory burden on oil and gas companies. The Environmental Protection Agency last month announced new rules to cut emissions from oil and gas operations, including a ban on routine flaring at new wells, requirements for comprehensive monitoring for methane leaks and new standards for equipment, such as controllers, pumps and storage tanks. A Trump administration could be expected to scrap all of those provisions.
Other climate-focused policy initiatives would also come under pressure. The Securities and Exchange Commission has been working on the final versions of its new rules on climate-related disclosures, including emissions reporting, which are scheduled to be published this year. The SEC is an independent agency, but a President Trump would be able to overturn the current majority of Democratic appointees and block those rules.
On some issues, the policy pendulum has been swinging back and forth with each change of administration. The first Trump administration in 2020 reformed the regulations for environmental approvals in 2020, with the aim of expediting infrastructure projects including oil and gas pipelines and LNG plants. Some of the key changes in those reforms were reversed by the Biden administration in 2022, and last July the White House Council on Environmental Quality proposed further changes. A second Trump administration would be likely to bring back the 2020 framework.
Leasing of federal lands and waters for oil and gas development is another area that would be set to change. The America First Policy Institute, a thinktank that employs several former officials from the first Trump administration, says restrictions on leasing under President Biden represent a “war on American energy”.
The administration has slowed the pace of onshore lease sales, and imposed new restrictions on oil and gas development in Alaska, including the cancellation of issued leases. In the Gulf of Mexico, the administration has proposed the smallest possible lease sale programme that is consistent with its goals for offshore wind development under the terms of the 2022 Inflation Reduction Act.
A change of approach on regulations and leasing would certainly be welcomed by many – although not all – in the US oil and gas industry and might squeeze out a little extra production. But US Lower 48 crude and condensate production has risen by about 2 million barrels per day during the Biden administration. If federal policy has been holding back growth, it has not been very effective. Almost half of that increase has come from New Mexico, where most development is on federal lands.
US oil production growth is slowing now, but not because of anything to do with government policy. The slowdown has been driven by crude prices declining while oilfield services costs have remained resilient following strong increases in 2022-23. West Texas Intermediate crude has dropped from a peak of US$95 a barrel at the end of September to a range of US$70-US$75 a barrel over the last six weeks or so.
A more active leasing programme could potentially boost production, but only in the longer term. It would be unrealistic to expect a change of administration to make a large and rapid difference to the supply side for US oil and gas.
In fact, a future Trump administration could have a larger and more lasting impact on the demand side. For oil, Wood Mackenzie’s base case forecasts projects that US demand will peak around 2025-27, and then decline slowly as consumption is eroded by increased fuel efficiency and the rise of electric vehicles.
Trump has been vocal in his opposition to EVs, and could be expected both to scrap regulations that encourage manufacturers to make them, and to push for an end to the tax credits that support sales. He would face obstacles in that effort: many states will continue to back electrification, and manufacturers have committed to making the shift to EVs. But to the extent that he is able to slow that transition, Trump will be able to help US oil demand stay higher for longer.
On gas, similarly, a President Trump would be able to take actions to help support demand. The Biden administration, under pressure from climate campaigners, is reviewing its criteria for deciding whether a gas export project is in the national interest. The Department of Energy already tightened its rules on permit awards last year, and now looks likely to add further restrictions related to greenhouse gas emissions.
Any change in the rules would most likely not stop new LNG export plants that have already been granted permits and are under construction. But future projects that have not reached final investment decision could be affected. A Trump administration could be expected to be more supportive of developers, allowing more export projects and ultimately boosting international sales of US gas.
Full story
2) 'Drill, baby, drill!' Americans by wide margin back Trump's greenlighting of oil and gas projects
Daily Mail, 12 January 2024
Americans by a wide margin endorse President Donald Trump's pledge to 'Drill, baby, drill' and allow oil and gas schemes on federal lands, despite fears of global warming after 2023's searing temperatures, our poll shows.
A DailyMail.com/TIPP Poll reveals that 49 percent of US adults support the former president's pro-fossil fuel policy, while only 40 percent disagree. Another 11 percent said they were not sure.
Trump uses the phrase regularly on the campaign trail — including at a rally in Waterloo, Iowa, last month. The expression has been used by other Republicans these past two decades.
The poll comes at the start of an election year in which Trump looks set to face-off against Democratic President Joe Biden, who touts his switch to renewables and support for electric vehicles as reasons to re-elect him.
Trump instead vows to slash US energy and electricity costs by ramping up domestic production of fossil fuels, with tax breaks for producers of oil, gas, and coal, even as scientists warn about man-made global warming.
He also wants to scrap much of Biden's $369 billion Inflation Reduction Act, the largest climate measure in US history.
Our survey of 1,247 voters this month found that more people supported Trump's policy than opposed it.
Full story
3) No more going wobbly in climate fight, Trump supporters vow
Politico, 12 January 2024
For all his bombast, the former president’s agencies hesitated to rewrite federal climate reports or install loyalists atop key science agencies. Some of his allies expect that to change.
Former President Donald Trump pulled the U.S. out of the Paris climate agreement, staffed his environmental agencies with fossil fuel lobbyists and claimed — against all scientific evidence — that the Earth’s rising temperatures will “ start getting cooler.”
Expect a second Trump presidency to show less restraint.
Trump’s campaign utterances, and the policy proposals being drafted by hundreds of his supporters, point to the likelihood that his return to the White House would bring an all-out war on climate science and policies — eclipsing even his first-term efforts that brought U.S. climate action to a virtual standstill. Those could include steps that aides shrank back from taking last time, such as meddling in the findings of federal climate reports.
“The approach is to go back to all-out fossil fuel production and sit on the EPA,” said Steve Milloy, a former Trump transition team adviser who is well known for his industry-backed attacks on climate science.
In his first term, Milloy said, Trump surrounded himself with too many people who were part of Washington’s political class and resisted dismantling parts of the government. “A lot of the people he appointed were unfortunately weak,” Milloy said.
For all his usual bombast, Trump even sometimes moderated his own tone on climate change during his presidency, for example by backpedaling on his previous claims that the entire concept was a hoax. He even went more than a year without maligning climate science on Twitter (now known as X).
But as the GOP front-runner, he’s gone back to alleging that human-caused global warming is fake, is baselessly blaming whale deaths on wind turbines and said last month that if elected he would be a “ dictator for one day” — in part so he could “drill, drill, drill.”
Meanwhile, many of his former staffers are building out a comprehensive plan to decimate both climate policy and regulations on fossil fuels. And Trump allies expect that the former president would fill his next administration with officials who are even more hostile to efforts to address global warming.
Trump’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment. But he has learned to ignore the advice of political advisers who told him to soft-pedal on climate, Milloy argued.
Dana Fisher, director of American University’s Center for Environment, Community and Equity, called the change in tone both notable and dangerous — showing that Trump is no longer concerned about reaching moderate and independent voters with his approach to climate policy.
“He doesn’t feel like he has to temper his language,” Fisher said. “The rhetoric means that he’s much more likely to empower these efforts and initiatives than when he was concerned about how they would play the last time.”
The Biden campaign has frequently attacked Trump’s rejection of climate science, calling it yet another example of his unfitness for office.
‘We are writing a battle plan’
Trump’s first term was defined by rolling back and weakening climate policy.
He gave energy lobbyists key positions of power, spent four years attempting to dismantle fossil fuel regulations and withdrew from the Paris Agreement. His appointees fought to keep coal-burning power plants open — even when utilities wanted to close them on economic grounds — and opened an antitrust probe of automakers that had volunteered to meet stiff clean-air standards.
His words and actions on broader science questions — from scrawling on a hurricane map with a Sharpie to glancing bare-eyed at a solar eclipse to musing aloud about killing Covid with sunlight — repeatedly displayed a disregard for mainstream research.
Even so, his administration showed some reluctance to embrace outright climate denialism.
Trump’s White House blocked a plan to conduct a so-called red team hostile review of the National Climate Assessment in 2018, a former adviser told POLITICO’s E&E News at the time. A plan to potentially shape the report’s next version by infusing it with scientists who deny the severity of climate change never took off.
In addition, an effort to remake one key agency, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, by installing climate science critics to top positions failed. And just a week before Trump’s term ended, the White House science office fired partisan climate researchers who had attempted to publish in the government record a series of fliers featuring cherry-picked data and misleading climate claims.
This time, his supporters are trying to ensure that a second Trump administration wouldn’t go as wobbly.
Dozens of conservative groups have banded together to write climate policy goals that would devastate virtually every regulation of the fossil fuel industry. The Project 2025 effort, led by the Heritage Foundation and partially authored by former Trump administration officials, also would turn key government agencies, such as the Environmental Protection Agency, toward increasing fossil fuel production rather than public health protections.
“We are writing a battle plan, and we are marshaling our forces,” Paul Dans, director of Project 2025 at the Heritage Foundation, told E&E News for a story last year. “Never before has the whole conservative movement banded together to systematically prepare to take power Day 1 and deconstruct the administrative state.”
Trump in his first term was too concerned about what his political advisers were telling him, said Will Happer, a former adviser on his National Security Council.
Because of that, he said, Trump abandoned a broader restructuring of federal climate science that some of his advisers had set in motion. A first step in that direction would have been a review of the National Climate Assessment that would have picked it apart, the emeritus Princeton University physics professor told E&E News.
“He genuinely wanted to do it, but he never did have a staff that he could trust or control,” Happer said in a recent interview. “I certainly saw that firsthand.”
Happer stepped down after the plan was scuttled, but he said Trump assured him that he could pick it up again after the election.
“He said, ‘Well, we were going to do this, but it’s dragged on and on, the election is coming, and it’s the wrong time to start it. Let’s do this in my second term,’” Happer recalled.
Full story
4) Matthew Lynn: America’s energy boom lays bare the madness of Net Zero
The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2024
While the US ramps up oil production to unprecedented levels, the UK is refusing to tap into its vast reserves. We should stop the Net Zero virtue signalling, and start drilling.
Another month, and yet another record has been broken. According to a report by the International Energy Agency, the US is now producing more oil than any other country ever. Likewise, Canadian production is hitting fresh highs, with the Alberta province reaching an all time record for energy output in November. Fracking is exceeding all expectations, with dramatically better yields, and a far better safety record than anyone foresaw when the industry was started a decade ago.
Quite sensibly, Joe Biden has called on producers to increase output to keep prices down. Yet while the UK has vast reserves of shale oil and gas, we banned it. We could be generating massive amounts of wealth this side of the Atlantic, and have chosen not to.
It’s hardly as though the Offshore Petroleum Licensing Bill, which progresses through Parliament this week, will add much to our domestic energy production. Companies will be allowed to apply for new licenses for the North Sea, although with a headline tax rate of 75 per cent, and with the Labour Party seemingly wanting to call time on the industry as quickly as possible, it is hard to understand why anyone would bother.
With every month that passes, the contrast becomes more stark. Britain has fallen prey to a Net Zero dogma and fixation with renewables. America, on the other hand, is producing 13.1 million barrels of oil a day, according to the US Energy Information Administration. This month it is forecast to hit 13.2 million barrels a day, overtaking the record set under the Trump administration just before the pandemic. The US is now the world’s top energy producer, and oil and gas is the country’s largest export. According to one report, Canada has now overtaken the whole of China for energy production, and is just behind Iraq. On current trends it will become the world’s fourth largest energy producer some time this year.
There is no great mystery about why production is booming. Fracking is exceeding all expectations. With drills that can now run for up to three miles horizontally, compared to initial upper limits of half a mile, far more can be extracted, and far more efficiently, than was previously expected. There is no sign of that progress slowing down. In June, for example, ExxonMobil’s chief executive Darren Woods said he aims to double the total output from the company’s American shale fields over the next five years by using better technology. He forecasts 9 per cent to 11 per cent annual growth from the crucial Permian basin alone.
On current trends, and without any new fields being opened up, the North American energy boom could keep on racking up 10 per cent annual growth rates for at least the rest of the decade. Ironically, that is largely the result of decisions made by three politicians generally regarded as standard-bearers for the environmentally aware liberal left, Barack Obama, Justin Trudeau, and Biden (who has also allowed a huge new traditional oil field to be developed in Alaska). All three leaders recognised, quite rightly, that while combating climate change was important, fossil fuels would still be needed for the transition to green energy, and they might as well be produced domestically instead of imported from Venezuela or Saudi Arabia. Looking back, it was among the smartest pieces of economic policy making in the last two decades.
Meanwhile, the UK is sitting on vast reserves, and doing nothing about it. While hesitation in the early-2010s may have been understandable, all the evidence from the US should now lead us to one clear conclusion. Fracking is much safer than it appeared a decade ago, and it is also vastly more productive. Technology has also advanced.
The real question is this. For how much longer will we simply ignore the American oil boom? When will we reconsider the ban? Unfortunately, there is not much sign so far. The Labour Party, which will almost certainly be in power very soon, is still intent on stopping all new licences even in the North Sea. Fossil fuels must form part of our low carbon transition. We should stop the Net Zero virtue signalling, and start drilling.
5) Capell Aris: Are Labour sleepwalking to energy disaster?
Net Zero Watch, 23 January 2024
It now looks likely that Labour will form the next government. However, it is also probable that Keir Starmer’s administration will, during its term of office, face an unprecedented energy crisis. This article explains why.
On a typical working day in winter, UK demand for electricity varies between 35 and 45 GW. supplied from an array of power plants (Figure 1)
Figure 1: UK electricity generation capacity by type
Building such a large amount of generation (the total capacity is 97 GW) to deliver a maximum of 45 GW goes a long way to explaining why our electricity bills have trebled since 2000.
However, renewables are intermittent. Dunkelflautes – weeks in the depths of winter when there is no wind and no solar generation – hit the country most years. Worse, wind droughts – the last one in 2021 – can last for years. And of course solar generation is negligible between October and April, and zero every night. Interconnectors are supposed to serve as backup power when our renewable generation is scarce, but can we reliably draw down energy from another grid when it might also have a shortage? We frequently share high pressure systems with the whole of Europe, during which windspeeds are low. These can occur in winter, when demand is at its highest.
As a result, we will remain critically dependent on our nuclear and combined cycle gas generation (CCGT) turbines to deliver power when renewables let us down.
And herein lies the problem — a significant proportion of our reliable generation capacity is due for closure over the next few years. For example, all of our existing nuclear power stations will be retired by 2031. The only replacement in the offing is Hinkley Point C, due for completion in 2027 (although industry rumour has it that 2030 is more likely). There is a plan to build a further 24 GW, but that’s in the distant future.
Meanwhile, CCGT plants are being retired too, as they reach the end of their 25-year lifetimes. There is little enthusiasm among investors to build new ones either, even with subsidies available. These machines work best when run flat out, and all those renewables mean that will happen only rarely.
Finally, Britain’s last coal-fired power station is due for closure within months.
The upshot is that by 2025 – the first full year of a Labour government – we may have just 18 GW of nuclear and gas left (Figure 2). By the end of its term of office, the total may have fallen to as low as 12 GW. Extending the lives of nuclear power stations, if safety regulators allow it, might add a bit more, and there is biomass too. However, if, as noted above, demand peaks at 45 GW or more, it is hard to imagine how we will avoid a serious crisis, with unsustainable electricity prices, black- and brown-outs, or both.
Figure 2: Nuclear and CCGT capacity, past and projected
These figures should cause those at the top of the Labour Party to pause for thought. Are they sleepwalking to disaster?
6) Senior Tories have blasted 'Trojan Horse' Net Zero agenda after Tata Steel announced it is axing 2,500 jobs
Daily Mail, 21 January 2024
Critics have argued that the Net Zero target of eliminating additional greenhouse emissions by 2050 was helping to cripple the UK's industrial base.
The job losses at Port Talbot, Britain's biggest steelworks, follow the replacement of its blast furnaces with an electric arc furnace that will emit less CO2.
Now top Tories have warned against new plans for Government bodies and regulators to define moves towards economic growth in terms of 'sustainability'.
It would mean that regulators such as Ofcom, who have a duty to support economic growth when they take decisions, would have to pivot to also demonstrate their 'alignment with environmentally sustainable objectives'.
The move, which is the subject of a Whitehall consultation, comes as Chancellor Jeremy Hunt is hoping to spark the economy into life in time for this year's general election.
Last night former Leader of the Commons Jacob Rees-Mogg called for the ditching of the new environmentally-based 'growth duty' definition.
'The viscera of the Net Zero Trojan Horse contain the enemies of growth,' he said.
'They aim to destroy the Government's last efforts to turn our economy around. Regulators must not be distracted with the flowery words of environmental objectives but need to concentrate on competition and growth.
'I fear the greens even when they bear regulatory gifts.'
Former Brexit Minister Lord Frost added: 'Setting these as legal objectives for regulators opens the door for spurious legal challenges by political campaigners, wasting time and money and distracting regulators further from their vital role in keeping the UK economy moving.
'If the Government is serious about fixing the economy, it must not allow the central mission of growth to be hijacked by special interest groups, who often care more about hamstringing growth than promoting it.'
Full story
7) Electric cars will never dominate market, says Toyota
Bloomberg, 23 January 2024
Toyota Motor Corp Chairman Akio Toyoda believes battery electric vehicles will reach at most 30% market share, with the rest taken up by hybrids, hydrogen fuel cell and fuel-burning cars.
With a billion people in the world living without electricity, limiting their choices and ability to travel by making expensive cars isn’t the answer, the grandson of the company’s founder said during a business event this month, according to remarks published on the company’s media platform Tuesday. “Customers — not regulations or politics — should make that decision,” he said.
The world’s No. 1 carmaker has pushed back against criticism of falling behind in the transition to electric vehicles, saying that its pioneering hybrid drivetrains, hydrogen technology and holistic approach will ultimately prove to be the right approach for the business, customers and the environment. Earlier this month, Toyoda announced an initiative to develop new combustion engines.
“Engines will surely remain,” Toyoda was quoted as saying in the company publication. It wasn’t clear whether Toyoda’s remarks referred to new car sales or those already on the road.
Full story
8) Mark Carney’s Net Zero alliance facing overhaul after ‘anti-woke’ backlash
The Daily Telegraph, 22 January 2024
Major insurers are leaving amid pressure from US politicians and anti-ESG activists
Mark Carney’s net zero lobby group is facing an overhaul of its membership after “anti-woke” campaigners demanded a shake-up.
The Net-Zero Insurance Alliance (NZIA), which was launched by the former Bank of England governor, is seeking to overhaul its membership to involve regulators and insurance brokers after facing a mass exodus of major insurers last year.
Current members “are engaging with a broader community of stakeholders on the evolution of the NZIA”, a spokesman told the Financial Times.
The NZIA has come under fire from US politicians and anti-ESG [environmental, social and corporate governance] activists who claimed that members of the group could breach laws against anti-competitive behaviour.
Republican attorney generals from across the US last year wrote to 28 insurers urging them to leave the United Nations-convened group, accusing them of colluding to increase insurance rates and contributing to high energy costs.
The calls were led by Sean Reyes, the attorney general of Utah, who said at the time: “Insurers have an obligation to protect the interests of their clients, not advance a radical environmental agenda.”
Consumers’ Research, a US non-profit organisation which seeks to protect customers from “woke” companies, last year displayed mobile billboards outside of the New York offices of three European insurers calling for them to “call off the collusion” and quit the NZIA.
The criticism comes amid a decline in ESG investing, which boomed during the pandemic
Nearly £2.5bn flowed out of funds which focused on ESG issues between May and October last year as investors and asset managers grappled with poor performance and greenwashing concerns, according to the S&P Global Clean Energy Index.
The backlash from anti-ESG campaigners has seen NZIA relations sour as the group lost nearly half of its members last year.
Quitters include Lloyd’s of London, the oldest insurance market in the world, plus several major global insurers, including Germany’s Allianz and France’s Axa.
The lobby group requires members to ensure their underwriting portfolios are net zero by 2050. It is part of the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), set up by Mr Carney in the run-up to the Cop26 climate summit in Scotland.
Joachim Wenning, chief executive of Munich Re, one of the world’s largest reinsurers, said the company cancelled its membership over fears that pursuing decarbonisation goals collectively would expose it to “material antitrust risks”.
Full story
9) Governments fail to agree timeline for climate science reports in fraught IPCC talks
Climate Change Home, 22 January 2024
Saudi, India and China led opposition against a proposal to link the IPCC’s assessment cycle with the global stocktake, sources told Climate Home.
Governments have failed to agree on a timeline for the delivery of highly influential scientific reports assessing the state of climate change by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).
That is after Saudi Arabia, India and China opposed attempts to ensure the scientific body would provide its assessment in time for the next global stocktake, the UN’s scorecard of collective climate action, due in 2028, according to sources present at the IPCC talks in Istanbul, Turkiye, last week.
Following “fraught” discussions that ran all night Friday, governments postponed a final decision on the timeline until the next meeting scheduled in the summer.
Swiss climate scientist Sonia Seneviratne, who is the vice chair of an IPCC working group, said she “was not totally surprised” to see opposition to the proposal.
“We know that some countries do not necessarily want climate policy to advance very fast and IPCC information will be critical for informing the global stocktake”, she added. “But I was surprised by the lack of willingness to even negotiate on these points”.
The findings of previous IPCC reports played a prominent role in informing the first global stocktake, which resulted in governments agreeing for the first time to begin “transitioning away from fossil fuels” at Cop28 last December.
Full story
10) And finally: EU must invest about €1.5tn a year to meet Net Zero targets, says Brussels
Financial Times, 23 January 2024
The figures are part of a draft document from the European Commission, seen by the Financial Times, that sets out Brussels’ plan for slashing emissions and reaching “economy-wide climate neutrality” by 2050.
Full story
The London-based Net Zero Watch is a campaign group set up to highlight and discuss the serious implications of expensive and poorly considered climate change policies. The Net Zero Watch newsletter is prepared by Director Dr Benny Peiser - for more information, please visit the website at www.netzerowatch.com.
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