Opinion
By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard January 28, 2025 — 5.59pm
Donald Trump is late to the shale party. The fracking boom of the last 15 years has largely run its course as the best seams are exploited and productivity declines.
Even if the geology holds up, the pace of drilling will be set by the global price of oil, the US price of gas and the cost of capital – already higher on market fears of inflationary overheating and debt addiction.
“We will drill, baby, drill. We will be a rich nation again, and it is that liquid gold under our feet that will help to do it,” said the president at his Orwellian inaugural.
US President Donald Trump is late on the shale party. Credit: Bloomberg
He was beaten to it by Barack Obama, Trump 1.0 and Joe Biden. America is already a rich nation and the world’s energy hegemon. The burning question is whether Trump 2.0 will throw it away.
He inherits a sizzling economy that has already come back from energy collapse and economic death in 2008 to become the world’s top producer of oil and gas by far, able to rescue Europe with “freedom molecules” after Vladimir Putin went to war.
America’s crude production has soared from 4.8 million to 13.5 million barrels per day – or 20 million including petroleum liquids – eliminating the energy deficit and accounting for nearly all the growth in global crude supply along the way.
Trump’s deregulation drive may cut the cost of extraction slightly, but that alone will not unleash a drilling frenzy.