Anonymous Survey Of Oil & Gas Executives Says Geopolitical Uncertainty Clouds Their Outlook

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Last Updated on: 30th March 2025, 12:23 am

Of all the constituent groups in the US, wouldn’t you think that oil and gas executives would be supporting President Donald J. Trump’s policies? Well, an anonymous survey released late this month by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas says otherwise.

Oil and gas company executives, it seems, are complaining behind closed doors about the Trump administration’s tariff policies and push for low oil prices. The key word they’re using to describe 2025 so far is “uncertainty.” In fact, the consensus among oil and gas executives seems to be that “the only certainty right now is uncertainty.”

Investors hate uncertainty, which gives more reason for the fossil fuel capitalists to frown. “This uncertainty is being caused by the conflicting messages coming from the new administration,” according to the Dallas Fed Energy Survey, March 26, 2025.

Major reasons explain the dismal attitude of oil and gas executives.

1. The first is a marked increase in the implied cost of capital of doing their business.
2. The second is that public energy stocks are down significantly more than oil prices over the last two months.
3. The Trump administration’s trade war with Canada and Mexico is hammering at the industry, with tariffs on foreign steel, specifically, at the root of the oil and gas executives’ dismay.

“I have never felt more uncertainty about our business in my entire 40-plus-year career,” one survey participant stated.

Traditional energy markets, it seems, are not exempt from the loss of public faith. Fossil fuels were already losing ground in the power generation industry during the first Trump administration. They are set to fall further behind as renewable energy dominates grid capacity additions over the next three years, according to the latest data compiled by FERC, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

The Problem with “Energy Dominance,” say Oil & Gas Executives

‍The survey results sharply contrast with a previous Dallas Fed survey released in January. Oil and gas firms generally said they were “more optimistic” about an incoming Trump administration, citing reduced regulations and pro-energy policies. Leaders of oil and natural gas production and oilfield services firms said they were anticipating more lax regulations under a Trump administration that was more “pro-business and pro-fossil-fuel production.”

What a difference a couple of months makes. Many of the March survey respondents spoke with real emotion about the plight of their companies. (As a reminder, the responses were submitted anonymously.)

Big Oil now insists that there cannot be “US energy dominance” alongside $50-per-barrel oil, calling those two statements “contradictory.” A $50-per-barrel oil price could make renewable energy advocates smile, if one respondent’s forecast plays out: “We will see US oil production start to decline immediately and likely significantly.”

Another person in the survey pool explained that, at $50-per-barrel oil, US oil production will start to “decline immediately and likely significantly (1 million barrels per day plus within a couple quarters). This is not ‘energy dominance.’”

President Donald Trump had promised to prop up the fossil fuel industry, without a care for the warming planet. He told the crowd at an Iowa primary, “We’re going to drill, baby, drill right away. Drill, baby, drill.” Yet that pledge has unhinged the very industry he was supposed to be supporting. Describing the administration’s “chaos as a disaster for the commodity markets,” another March survey respondent wrote that the “drill, baby, drill” motto 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. We want more stability.”

Did Trump float the “drill, baby, drill” motto ahead of time with Big Oil? Probably not. This is the decade of industry consolidation, and the most accessible fields seem to already be depleted. Anyone who follows Big Oil closely knows how the US oil cost curve is in a different place than it was five years ago: “$70 per barrel is the new $50 per barrel,” according to one survey respondent.

Uncertainty has permeated oil and gas executives’ outlook during the past quarter. One person indicated that planning for new development “is extremely difficult right now due to the uncertainty around steel-based products.” As oil prices fluctuate wildly, “it’s hard to gauge whether prices will be in the $50s per barrel or $70s per barrel.” The result is that Big Oil’s ability to plan operations for any meaningful amount of time in the future “has been severely diminished,” explains one respondent.

Rhetoric spewing from the current Republican administration has forced prices down, and several oil and gas executives threatened to shut down production and do quick drilling. In the interim, one survey participant summed it up: “I feel very negative about the short-term outlook for the oil and gas business.”

The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas received responses from 130 energy firms, including exploration and production companies that find and produce oil and natural gas and 47 oilfield services firms that support those activities. The survey covers companies operating in Texas, southern New Mexico, and northern Louisiana.

Want Real Energy Dominance? Infuse Renewables into the Mix

Trump wants to “drill, baby, drill” and take advantage of the inexpensive gas and oil that the US sells to the world. Energy-related executive orders are part of a larger administration vision of US “energy dominance.” We in the clean energy camp know that Trump’s repudiation of renewable energy technologies could make the US an outlier in the world.

Global investors poured nearly twice as much money into renewable energy in 2024 as they did into fossil fuels, according to the International Energy Agency. Trump, however, has barred any new construction of offshore wind projects, taken a jab at eliminating EV incentives, and reversed former President Joe Biden’s decision to rejoin the Paris climate pact.

Trump negatively impacted the US offshore wind industry — and its 40-state supply chain, too — when he froze federal offshore leases. Onshore wind activity, though, still has potential to pick up, including contributions from the wind farm repowering industry.

A key action to guarantee clean energy in the near future is diversification. Relying too heavily on only one renewable source can expose countries to seasonal or long-term shifts in climate. The oil and gas executives who participated anonymously in the March Dallas Fed Energy Survey seem keenly aware of this fact.