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Energy companies are asking the White House for a more steady approach after a whirlwind few weeks of tariff threats and changing policies that have buffeted the industry.
“Swinging from one extreme to another is not the right policy,” Chevron chief executive Mike Wirth said as CERAWeek, one of the oil industry’s biggest annual conferences, kicked off in Houston. “We really need consistent and durable policy.”
Chevron has been an early and direct target of the shifting stances taken by the new administration. Last month, President Donald Trump said he would end a licence that has allowed the oil company to export oil from Venezuela since 2022.
Wirth said oil companies needed to see energy policy set in legislation “so it’s more durable and not at risk of being swung back in another direction by a future administration”.
At a private dinner on Sunday night ahead of the conference, chief executives made the same request to Chris Wright, the US energy secretary, asking the White House to rely less on executive orders and more on legislation to achieve its goals, according to one person who was present. Wright also met oil and gas chief executives for another session on Monday morning.
The call for more predictable and long-term policy comes after a flurry of executive orders that have taken the US out of the Paris climate agreement; reversed the previous administration’s pause on approvals for liquefied natural gas terminals; eased regulations on oil and gas production; given the White House more powers to approve new power infrastructure; ended restrictions on drilling in Alaska; and banned new leases for offshore wind projects.
Separately, the White House has announced, paused and re-announced tariffs on Canada and Mexico, casting uncertainty on energy supply chains to the US.
Schneider Electric, a French industrial giant with manufacturing operations in Mexico and Canada, called for “certainty” in relation to the on-and-off-again tariffs. “Our recommendation to the administration certainty is a good thing,” said Aamir Paul, president of Schneider Electric North America, in an interview with the Financial Times.
“If they think there is a better structure to the [United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement], fine. The sooner they can renegotiate that and stabilise that environment the better.”
He said continuing uncertainty could create delays to investment and slow the administration’s drive to strengthen the US electricity grid to achieve the goal of American energy dominance.
“Uncertainty generally creates delay, right? Because what is your planning assumption if you are doing a big project? Clarity helps because you are planning on a more stable environment.”
Meanwhile, Wright told reporters at CERAWeek that the administration was likely to speed up its energy policy in the coming weeks. “We’re hoping to pick up the pace,” he said, as he signed an approval for a new LNG export terminal on the Gulf Coast that will handle 1.8bn cubic feet a day of gas.
He added that the White House had no specific target for how low it would like to see oil prices, but said he believed “it’s in the best interests of the American people and the citizens of the world to have lower oil prices”.
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