Not surprisingly, the administration that road to power as a tool of the fossil fuel industry, is crapping on the hand that feeds it.
Everything Trump touches dies.
The price of oil has dropped to some of its lowest levels of the year, making it less expensive for Americans to fuel their cars, but further straining U.S. oil companies, which have been idling drilling rigs and shedding thousands of workers.
At less than $59 a barrel, U.S. oil prices are now about 19 percent lower than they were at the end of last year. That is low enough that it no longer makes financial sense for many companies to drill new wells.
The main reason for the drop is that global oil production has been growing more quickly than demand.
The recent slide below $60 a barrel came this month, after Israel and Hamas agreed to a cease-fire, alleviating concerns that Middle East conflicts would disrupt the flow of oil. At the same time, heightened trade tensions have weighed on expectations for economic growth worldwide and, thus, demand for fuels.
Energy prices figured prominently in the 2024 presidential campaign, and President Trump has urged Saudi Arabia and other big oil producers to help drive down prices. But lower prices will undermine another of the administration’s aims — to greatly increase domestic oil production.
If prices remain around these levels for a long stretch or if they fall further, as many analysts, including at the Energy Department, think is likely to happen, the U.S. oil industry will be hard pressed to keep growing.
Oil had been hovering between $60 and $70 a barrel for much of the year, lower than many companies would prefer, but not enough to dent production. U.S. output climbed to a record 13.6 million barrels a day in July, according to the Energy Information Administration.
That run is likely just about over, oil executives said.
“Activity level has now fallen to a place where it would be very difficult to sustain current production,” Ron Gusek, the chief executive of the fracking company Liberty Energy, said in an interview last week.
As oil rigs get laid down, that means less Natural gas co-production as well.
The largest contributor by far of crude oil production in the U.S. is the Permian Basin, a large swath of energy-rich land in west Texas and eastern New Mexico. Of the 13.1 MMBbl/day of crude produced this month, the Permian made up 47.3%, or 6.2 MMBbl/day.
The Permian also produces significant amounts of natural gas that is associated with the production of oil. As the volume of oil increases, so does the associated gas that comes with it.
EIA Short Term Energy Outlook:
Natural gas prices. The Henry Hub spot price in our forecast averages about $4.00 per million British thermal units (MMBtu) in 2025 and $4.90/MMBtu in 2026, compared with $2.20/MMBtu in 2024. Higher natural gas prices in 2025 and 2026 are the result of strong export growth that persistently outpaces U.S. natural gas production.
Industry leaders and analysts attribute the job losses to a combination of persistently low oil and gas prices; higher supply costs, in part due to Trump’s tariffs; and consolidation in the industry, with company mergers leading to eliminating redundant positions.
ExxonMobil is the latest major company to signal job cuts, announcing last week that it would trim its global workforce by 3-4 percent, or 2,000 jobs. Most of Exxon’s job cuts will be in Europe and Canada.
However, other companies’ layoffs are already affecting U.S. employees. Chevron earlier this year said it planned to reduce its employees by 15-20 percent globallyby the end of 2026, with about 200 people in the oil and gas hub of Midland, Texas, losing their jobs in July.
Shell last year said it would reduce its global workforce by 20 percent, including about 100 in the Houston area. And BP said in January it would eliminate 6,200 corporate and 4,400 contractor roles by the end of this year.
https://pv-magazine-usa.com/2025/10/22/over-24-billion-in-u-s-clean-energy-investment-and-21000-jobs-lost-in-2025/
Well Fk!
“that road to power” ??? Had me confused until I realized you meant “rode”
Mexico, Canada, China, S Korea, the Netherlands buy the most us oil. Oil is sold in a global market, but everything we can do to encourage EV use in those countries as well as in the us reduces us oil sales, takes money and power away from the us oil industry and at least makes it and its wholly owned subsidiaries—the federal and numerous state governments—go look for buyers in a collapsing market with dropping demand and EROEI, being fought over by lots of countries utterly dependent on selling it, most of whom can’t afford to reduce production enough to keep prices high. The farthest, deepest, most likely to end up as deepwater horizons should be the first to be shut down or not drilled at all, preventing some disasters.