So you’re a Biden fan now? Changed your mind?
Given all the geopolitical uncertainty, U.S. oil companies aren’t in a hurry to dramatically expand production. For instance, the U.S. produced 11.5 million barrels of crude oil a day in May 2022, according to the U.S. Energy Information Agency. While that’s 200,000 more than a year ago, it’s roughly half a million barrels a day less than in 2019.
Why? For one thing,
major oil companies don’t want to invest heavily on new wells only to see supply increase, prices decline and their profits dwindle.
This was a major theme of the fracking boom that helped propel the U.S. to become the number one global oil-producing nation over the last decade and a half. Many companies went bankrupt as they overextended themselves building out infrastructure, only to see oil and gas prices plummet on greater and greater supply.
Meanwhile, there’s a large push by some of the world’s largest institutional investors, including BlackRock, to steer investment toward companies with low levels of environmental, social and governance (
ESG) risk. That’s moved money away from oil and gas producers when those dollars would help increase production.
Meanwhile, the Biden administration has paused new oil and gas leases on Federal land. That may not have an immediate impact on prices, but does affect supply in the years to come.
According to the Labor Department’s most recent report, CPI in April was 2.3% higher than one year prior and 0.2% higher than in March.
www.forbes.com