US Energy Secretary Chris Wright Talks Energy Sector

Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.

Let's transition now to Washington, where the US Department of Energy has outlined their energy roadmap focused on unleashing American energy innovation and strengthening power grid reliability and security. I'm pleased to say that US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who was confirmed just last week, joins us now for an exclusive interview. It's such a pleasure to have you, mister Secretary.

Thank you for joining.

Us, Thanks for having me, Alex. Great to be here, you bet so.

Last time we talked, you were CEO of and Oil.

Company, and now you run energy policy for the United States. That's a big change. What do you say when I ask you.

The question, what oil price do you guys want right now?

Well, I don't want any oil price right now lowers better. The President got elected to bring down energy prices and broader prices across the economy and grow opportunities for American So my goal right now is more energy of all kinds, more affordable, reliable, secure energy to expand American opportunities.

But the easy pickings are oil. So what's the price?

And I say this because with your dual hat, right, if you're an oil producer, you don't want sixty dollars oil. You want to make more money for the oil. As energy secretary, you want sixty dollars oil.

Well, all we can.

Do supply and demand will be decided by well consumers in the marketplace and producers. But what we can do and what we're focused on, is reducing the cost to produce a barrel of oil. So for producers, they could have lower oil prices and the same profitability if their costs were reduced. So the last administration spent four years trying to put all sorts of barriers make it harder and riskier to produce oil in the United States.

We're going to do the opposite.

We're going to try to enable producers to bring on supply at lower costs and greater certainty.

So I'm going to follow up on that Chris and ask how can you lower the cost curve for company is to invest in new development and not just use money to offset regular well declines.

Yes, So one of the biggest challenges investing in oil and gas infrastructure over the last bunch of years has been uncertainty. If you produce more products, can you get it to market? You know, we still have six states in New England without a reliable supply of natural gas. That's bad for producers, that's bad for consumers. But there's a number of barriers like that.

That we can move out of the way.

LNG export pause, for example, everybody in India is alarmed they might not get an increasing supply of natural gas. And how are American producers of natural gas can to invest more in gas production infrastructure if.

They're not sure if they can get it to market.

So I think, you know, we can help the consumers of India, the population of the United States, and producers of natural gas by just removing those uncertainties and going back to regular, common sense business.

Removing uncertainty is one thing, But I'm curious whether there's a ceiling on US crew production right now that EIA is projecting a two point three percent increase in US crew production, how much higher do you think realistically that could go.

Well, again, that's going to be the ability to build infrastructure and access more consumers, but I think it could grow meaningfully. It's probably not going to grow meaningfully in the short run, although our natural gas production I think is going to grow dramatically in the next two or three years. But if you look at five or ten years, could America grower oil production significantly?

Absolutely, mister Secretary, to that point.

In terms of building out infrastructure, that's been very difficult, in terms of permitting, in terms of getting something in the ground, that's been very hard to Tariffs and higher prices for aluminum and steel and things like that make that even harder for you.

Look at tariff's what's been the big issues for this president that he ran on, you know, the economic well being of Americans and the national security of our country and our citizens. So we've had twenty plus years of sort of de industrializing the United States and letting our heavy industry flow overseas. This president is passionate about increasing national security, and that means we have to have the ability to build heavy steel intensive, illumina intensive, material intensive

Talking about different forms of energy because as you pointed out, like it's not just oil right, all forms of energy, it's energy security.

What role do you think coal is going to play in that?

The coal has been essential to the United States is energy system for over one hundred years. It's been the largest source of global electricity for nearly one hundred years, and it will be for decades to come.

So we need to be realistic about that.

Now with coal, are we going to see a renaissance in surging coal production in the United States? Not likely, But we're all on a path to continually shrink the electricity we generate from coal. That's made electricity more expensive and our grid less stable. So I think the best we can hope for in the short term is to stop the closure of coal power plants.

No one has won by that action, you know.

I was looking at the energy roadmap that you've published the Department has published, and the word security comes up so many times. I'm wondering why or does energy security also include solar and wind, and if not, why not?

Well, the goal is We're not specific to any particular energy production technology. The goal is just affordable, reliable, secure energy from wherever that comes from. Obviously there's going to be roles in the long run for solar energy. There's places where it makes tons of sense, where where the natural resources are there in the infrastructure is benefited.

By adding more solar to the grid.

But I will say one thing for sure, We're not going to go down the road of Germany. You know, they spend half a trillion dollars, They more than doubled their price of electricity.

They actually shrunk the total.

Amount of electricity the country produces by about twenty percent, and their industry is fleeing the country. That's the path the United States was starting to go down.

But that's the wrong path.

So, if I'm hearing you correctly, there is a role for things like solar and wind. Yet some of the President's executive orders can be seen as clear moves to stifle those industries.

I guve stifle might be the wrong word, but we shouldn't subsidize technologies that ultimately just make our energy more expensive and less reliable. I don't think you'll see policies that continue to.

Go down that road.

One other policy, as well, as nuclear, we've seen a real resurgence in restarting some nuclear facilities. The previous administration was looking towards domestic uranium production, and I'm wondering if you would continue down that road, because we need that. If nuclear is a big part of that solution.

Absolutely.

One of the industries we've lost in this country are lost in large part is the ability to produce nuclear materials generate nuclear power. Ultimately, we need that infrastructure here, we need that mining here, we need that uranium enrichment here, we need that to again be building and growing our production of nuclear energy. So absolutely, our hope is to really start the American nuclear renaissance as fast as we can.

So then let's talk about some of the legislative ways that you feel like the administration can manage this. Because the Democrats came out with the IRA what can the Republicans come out with that can prevent something more dramatic being done down the road under a different administration. What specifically can you guys get done.

Oh, I think there's a lot of things now, some of these we've heard talked about for years, but no action, just common sense permitting reform. America became this phenomenal industrial powerhouse by people building things in America, investing money, taking risks. We built a highway system, a pipeline system, an electricity grid in plants. We've come to a point in America today where it's very easy to stop something from being

That is a part of it too.

I wonder though, in terms of say federal lands, for example, like selling federal acreage to the state of Alaska so it can do what say Texas does more concrete, smaller things like this.

Yeah, look, all ideas are on the table, and all ideas are being discussed. At a minimum, we're going to see common sense permitting on federal lands. Of course, this president and this administration loves the wilderness and wildlife and the ever cleaner air in waters that I've enjoyed throughout my lifetime.

There's no change in any of that.

But we have so many obstructions that don't allow roads to be built on federal land, Roads that could be used for logging and wildfire control, roads that could access mining and minerals production. So I think we're going to see just a return of common sense to use the federal lands what they were intended to be used for.

Now, let's switch to a different part of the administration.

That's in terms of money being doled out the Department of Loans. It was very contentious under the Biden administration in terms of the money that was going out the door in relation to the IRA. What's your guys's plan. Are you going to divert the money to projects that you guys like? Are you going to kind of roll back funding for projects you didn't like?

Well, you know, I'm inheriting a portfolio.

So the first thing I'm doing from the day one I walked in the office is to understand what is our existing loan portfolio. Who do we have loans out, what are the terms under which they are, which projects are midway, which projects haven't launched yet. So I've got to follow the law and manage what I've inherited. And then there's a lot of moneies uncommitted or early on, and of course those will be deployed to advance the

We don't want to do things like that.

We want to focus on American consumers and not subsidizing this industry.

Or that industry.

We want the marketplace in consumers to pull what energy is in demand.

Of course, but you also have your own priorities. I'm wondering, would you cancel loans that have already been.

Doled We will follow the laws.

So that's what I'm doing right now is rigorously looking at what is the status of those loans, what is the status of those projects, and no things that we inherit that are half pregnant that are going on, we will continue to honor the law.

Mister Secretary, I want to ask you about the SPR the strategic Petroleum Reserve. President Trump has vowed to refill that quote right to the top. What is the appropriate volume for the seven hundred million barrel reserve?

So look, I'm not going to talk specifics right here, but as you just hear right in that name the strategic petroleum reserve, that's not the electoral advantage strategic, I mean petroleum reserve that we use to drive down energy prices around election times. That's not what it's for, right The strategic petroleum reserve is things can go wrong, we can have a strategic crisis, and we don't want America's consumers,

Do you know how much you're going to ask Congress for and how fast you can refill it, mister secretary.

That's being evaluated in discussed right now. So no, I've got no scoop or no news to leak on that right now.

But it is a good question you're asking.

Oh, come on, maake some news of me, and that'd be a bunch more fun.

All right, next time you'll come back and you'll tell us. I guess my question is, what's the conversation you're having now with say, big oil companies on that. Have you been able to start this conversation.

Now right now?

I'm looking internally at what's in our department right now, what's in our technology.

Portfolio, and what are the barriers.

That the government has in place that we can do something about. I have not had any dialogues with Big Oil or any of the industry players since I've assumed my role, not that I won't going forward, but right now I'm trying to understand where are the biggest problems, how can we get the shortest term biggest wins.

Yeah, well, it seems like everyone in is during that right now, trying to assess the situation. And I'm curious whether the members of DOOJE, the squad that's embedded at the Department of Energy, have requested access to any classified information.

They have not.

And I've met the DOGE team that's at Department of Energy and liked them a lot. These are passionate people that are coming into like looking very specifically right now at the flow of funds going out and the systems we use to carry out our basic business functions. How can we be smarter and more efficient doing what we do, and how can we be very careful to know where funds are flowing and where they're not flowing.

So it's much less intrusive than a.

Typical corporate audit, but it's giving quick, up to date information to help me and the rest of the department run more efficiently and be better stewards of the taxpayer, taxpayer funds the deal.

He was quick to say that there's no nuclear secrets being given away or anything along those lines, and I put that in quotes. But is there a circumstance where you would have to turn that over? Is that become aware of any of this in any point?

I've heard nothing about that at all. We did security vetting on the small team that we have. They have read only access to very limited parts of our systems. No one has asked or expressed any interest, and we would definitely not share the secrets of our nuclear weapons program and our non proliferation and all those efforts.

That's that's not part of DOGE. This is not a reckless effort.

In fact, it's a very focused and thoughtful effort to quickly look for ways to improve how we run the business.

Right, to streamline things, make things more efficient. We understand the purpose there behind OAJ. So I guess the question for you, mister secretary, is how lean can the DOE get?

Then we don't know yet. We don't know yet.

But if you take an organization that hasn't been carefully looked at, are we finding low hanging fruit to reduce our expenditures? And deliver the same output. I can say that's an unqualified.

Yes, we are.

How big those savings are going to be, well, it's a little early for that, but they.

Will be meaningful.

We will find meaningful savings, savings and efficiencies without any degradation of our output. In fact, I think we're going to see dramatically different output our our agendas energy addition, and I'm taking over for you know, administration. This goal was energy subtraction. So I think we're going to see far more output and productivity at reduced costs.

That's the plan.

I mean, that's what oil companies do, so you are very familiar with that way of operating. Mister secretary, before we let you go, you mentioned stopping closure of coal plants, et cetera. We were talking about nuclear, We're talking about the growth of LNG exports, et cetera. What do you think in the United States has the most potential to be the next big thing, to be the next US shale?

I mean, well, I think for the you know, in the short term, the next big exciting thing is continued evolution of shale. I mean, today, over seventy percent of the energy consumed in the United States comes from just two things, oil and natural gas. Now, one of the things I want to do is grow that pie of significant contributors, and probably the technology we know of today that could most meaningfully grow is nuclear, both these next

But technology is moving fast, and I think.

As you look out several years in the future, nuclear is going to.

Be on the rise and add a.

Lot of affordable, reliable, secure energy to America. It's got some ways to go from where we are today, but there's a great roadmap there that I'm quite excited about.

Mister Secretary, Thank you so much. What a great way to adend. We really appreciate all the time that you gave us today. Let's check back in about fusion. I love that we can talk about this. Thank you so much. Chris Wright, US Secretary of Energy