Energy
Trump and Energy

From the Frontier Centre for Public Policy
By Terry Etam
Did you know that the United States Secret Service has a Chief of Communications? Does that not seem a little odd? To excel at his job, would he be perfectly silent?
Well, he’s not…Over the weekend the Chief of Communications of the United States Secret Service took to Twitter to start acting not very secret at all. How is this for a tweet: “…three charter flights filed with @SecretService agents, technicians, officers & mission support personnel safely arrived in Milwaukee.” He included a picture of one of the planes and all the debarked people standing on the tarmac.
I guess my definition of “Secret Service” is not that of the government’s, but then again, I’m not caught up in the same civil war-esque brouhaha over just what sort of curtain of madness would have descended over the world if Trump hadn’t turned his head that instant. Indeed, the past few days have been astonishing, watching players from across the spectrum and around the world reorient to accommodate what has happened.
Things are so complex, tense, and volatile that even the secret service feels the need to point out what it is doing, in great detail (though I’m sure the Director is muzzled re: the juicy stuff). In this environment predictions seem unwise, but hey that issue has never stopped me before, so here goes with a few observations of relevance to the energy industry.
As a building block of discussion, it is now highly probable that Trump will win the upcoming election. That ridiculously iconic photo of his bloody self with fist raised in front of the US flag is creating new Trump supporters out of not-insignificant online commentators that have spent years bashing him. Even Trump’s vice-presidential nominee, J.D. Vance, once expressed dislike for the big goofball (yes, he is: Exhibit A would be his tweet of a photo-shopped Trump tower in a Greenland village with the plea: “I promise not to do this to Greenland!” Of course he was many other things as well, but who could forget that…).
On the energy front, we know where Trump stands – drill baby drill. He wants to unleash American energy to drive down prices for consumers and increase competitiveness for US business. One aspect that goes unnoticed in this general discussion though is that there are material differences in what this means to the oil business/market versus the natural gas business/market.
He will focus on oil first. It will be symbolically important at a minimum for Trump to lower gasoline prices; they are a flashpoint because of the incessant visibility, the constant updating to a fraction of a cent in huge neon font as one drives down the road. Lowering gasoline prices will not be as easy as many think; for example, opening federal lands to drilling activity will not have any influence on gasoline prices for a long time, if at all. Trump could lower some forms of taxes in a bid to lower prices, but the effect of that would not be huge.
His main goal would be to expand oil production in a bid to lower prices, but this is where things get complicated in the modern age. The US is now a net exporter of oil, some 1.6 million b/d in 2023, a reversal of the situation of prior years. Now, the US still imports significant quantities of oil because its refineries require certain grades in greater quantities than it produces, and exports the grades it cannot utilize (mostly light oil).
This dynamic will make it tough for the US to drive down global prices on its own (oil is very much priced on the global stage), no matter what Trump does in the short term. A drilling frenzy, even if he could orchestrate one, would simply result in more oil exports until the quantity was large enough that it made a new global impact. But at that point, OPEC would be involved and pulling whatever strings it wanted to get the price where it wanted.
So, under Trump we should expect a flurry of feel-good vibes for the oil sector, with more friendly legislation, rules, and land leasing opportunities, but the impact on oil production will take time to achieve any price reductions. All other potential levers to reduce gasoline prices will be on the table, including existing federal regulations that are negatively impacting any downstream activity.
Natural gas is going to be more interesting. It is the unsung hero of industry; a vital cog that is critical to many industries and real estate ventures, but one that gets scant attention until something weird happens, like a shortage.
Natural gas shortages have historically been short term phenomena related to extreme weather events, and the price mechanism fixed the problem in a big hurry. Gas drillers are very good at what they do.
What has made natural gas so beneficial tot he US economy over the last decade is the fact that producers have reliably glutted the market, giving the US (and Canada) the lowest sustained natural gas prices on the planet. The economic benefit of that is hard to overestimate, since cheap natural gas enables so many beneficial industrial processes and keeps power and heating bills reasonable for consumers.
But if all that LNG export capacity is built, and if all the proposed AI data centres are built as planned, there will be significant strain on North American producers to meet that surge in demand. New LNG capacity and expected data center demand could, by 2030, add 20-30 bcf/d of new demand, in a 100 bcf/d market. Adding those volumes will be an enormous challenge and will require higher prices to incentivize producers to make it happen.
But higher prices will be exactly what Trump does not want. So, one can safely assume he will be pushing hard on US producers to expand output and will make it much easier to build infrastructure. That will help, but it is going to be a tough balancing act to ensure production increases sufficiently while at the same time keeping the cost of the vital fuel low. Natural gas markets would most certainly benefit from the relative stability of oil prices, however that is much harder to do in a “just in time” market which natural gas essentially is.
And then on top of it all, despite the importance of energy prices and availability, all will be background noise compared to the circus that will accompany his second run at presidency. The world is becoming more bifurcated and the US’ position in it is changing. There are enough active wars to make any human sick, and the US has to balance where to be involved and where not, which is as far from simple as can be. Additionally, the world is tectonically drifting into the wealthy west, the golden billion, and the ‘rest of the world’, the 7 billion that aspire to live like the west does.
On top of that, the people that hate Trump really, really hate Trump. One reason the west is in such turmoil is because of the polarizing nature of not just Trump, but of the reaction to Trump.
We will see though – at time of writing, Trump, in a post-shooting interview, said that he had ripped up his planned speech for the Republican National Convention. It was going to be a “humdinger” (his word, or course) attacking Biden’s record. However, his latest version will focus on unifying the nation. Let’s hope it works, rooting for you my American friends. No one will be better off if the US does not regain its footing.
Terry Etam is a columnist with the BOE Report, a leading energy industry newsletter based in Calgary. He is the author of The End of Fossil Fuel Insanity. You can watch his Policy on the Frontier session from May 5, 2022 here.
Alberta
Pierre Poilievre – Per Capita, Hardisty, Alberta Is the Most Important Little Town In Canada

From Pierre Poilievre
Energy
If Canada Wants to be the World’s Energy Partner, We Need to Act Like It

Photo by David Bloom / Postmedia file
From Energy Now
By Gary Mar
With the Trans Mountain Expansion online, we have new access to Pacific markets and Asia has responded, with China now a top buyer of Canadian crude.
The world is short on reliable energy and long on instability. Tankers edge through choke points like the Strait of Hormuz. Wars threaten pipelines and power grids. Markets flinch with every headline. As authoritarian regimes rattle sabres and weaponize supply chains, the global appetite for energy from stable, democratic, responsible producers has never been greater.
Canada checks every box: vast reserves, rigorous environmental standards, rule of law and a commitment to Indigenous partnership. We should be leading the race, but instead we’ve effectively tied our own shoelaces together.
In 2024, Canada set new records for oil production and exports. Alberta alone pumped nearly 1.5 billion barrels, a 4.5 per cent increase over 2023. With the Trans Mountain Expansion (TMX) online, we have new access to Pacific markets and Asia has responded, with China now a top buyer of Canadian crude.
The bad news is that we’re limiting where energy can leave the country. Bill C-48, the so-called tanker ban, prohibits tankers carrying over 12,500 tons of crude oil from stopping or unloading crude at ports or marine installations along B.C.’s northern coast. That includes Kitimat and Prince Rupert, two ports with strategic access to Indo-Pacific markets. Yes, we must do all we can to mitigate risks to Canada’s coastlines, but this should be balanced against a need to reduce our reliance on trade with the U.S. and increase our access to global markets.
Add to that the Impact Assessment Act (IAA) which was designed in part to shorten approval times and add certainty about how long the process would take. It has not had that effect and it’s scaring off investment. Business confidence in Canada has dropped to pandemic-era lows, due in part to unpredictable rules.
At a time when Canada is facing a modest recession and needs to attract private capital, we’ve made building trade infrastructure feel like trying to drive a snowplow through molasses.
What’s needed isn’t revolutionary, just practical. A start would be to maximize the amount of crude transported through the Trans Mountain Expansion pipeline, which ran at 77 per cent capacity in 2024. Under-utilization is attributed to a variety of factors, one of which is higher tolls being charged to producers.
Canada also needs to overhaul the IAA and create a review system that’s fast, clear and focused on accountability, not red tape. Investors need to know where the goalposts are. And, while we are making recommendations, strategic ports like Prince Rupert should be able to participate in global energy trade under the same high safety standards used elsewhere in Canada.
Canada needs a national approach to energy exporting. A 10-year projects and partnerships plan would give governments, Indigenous nations and industry a common direction. This could be coupled with the development of a category of “strategic export infrastructure” to prioritize trade-enabling projects and move them through approvals faster.
Of course, none of this can take place without bringing Indigenous partners into the planning process. A dedicated federal mechanism should be put in place to streamline and strengthen Indigenous consultation for major trade infrastructure, ensuring the process is both faster and fairer and that Indigenous equity options are built in from the start.
None of this is about blocking the energy transition. It’s about bridging it. Until we invent, build and scale the clean technologies of tomorrow, responsibly produced oil and gas will remain part of the mix. The only question is who will supply it.
Canada is the most stable of the world’s top oil producers, but we are a puzzle to the rest of the world, which doesn’t understand why we can’t get more of our oil and natural gas to market. In recent years, Norway and the U.S. have increased crude oil production. Notably, the U.S. also increased its natural gas exports through the construction of new LNG export terminals, which have helped supply European allies seeking to reduce their reliance on Russian natural gas.
Canada could be the bridge between demand and security, but if we want to be the world’s go-to energy partner, we need to act like it. That means building faster, regulating smarter and treating trade infrastructure like the strategic asset it is.
The world is watching. The opportunity is now. Let’s not waste it.
Gary Mar is president and CEO of the Canada West Foundation
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