(Bloomberg) -- President Donald Trump is set to meet with top oil executives at the White House next week as he charts plans to stoke domestic energy production, even as the industry grows uneasy about falling crude prices and tariff uncertainty.
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The encounter is set to be Trump’s first sit-down with a large group of oil and gas leaders since his inauguration and his creation of a new National Energy Dominance Council to quarterback policy. The planned meeting was described by people familiar with the matter, who asked not to be named because it had not been formally announced.
Invited participants include executives leading some of the nation’s largest oil companies, including members of the industry’s top trade group, the American Petroleum Institute. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, the head of Trump’s energy dominance council, and Chris Wright, the energy secretary who is the panel’s vice chair, are also expected to attend.
The session, like Trump’s meetings with executives from other industries, is seen as an opportunity to discuss policy priorities at the opening of his second term. Trump held similar meetings during his first term, including to discuss an oil price collapse fed by the pandemic and a battle for market share between Russia and Saudi Arabia.
The president has an affinity for America’s oil and gas bounty — he frequently calls it “liquid gold” — and industry leaders, including billionaires Harold Hamm of Continental Resources and Kelcy Warren of Energy Transfer LP, backed his 2024 campaign.
Trump has already launched a series of policy changes intended to boost demand for oil and gas, while making it easier and less costly to produce those fossil fuels. It’s part of his broader campaign to “unleash American energy dominance.”
Yet the president’s efforts to juice US oil and gas output — while also slashing energy prices — may be on a collision course, a warning increasingly sounded by oil leaders. Hamm has said that higher prices — around $80 per barrel — are needed to unlock some production.
West Texas Intermediate crude, the US benchmark, is hovering around $67, a price decline tied to increased output from OPEC+ and concerns about weak Chinese demand.
“There are a lot of fields that are getting to the point that’s real tough to keep that cost of supply down,” Hamm told Bloomberg Television on Thursday. Once oil prices are below $50 — a level touted by the administration — “you’re below the point where you’re going to ‘drill, baby, drill,’” Hamm added.