Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said his top priority if reelected to the White House will be to “drill, baby, drill” to lower the cost of energy.
“Republicans have a plan to bring down prices and bring them down very, very rapidly. By slashing energy costs, we will in turn reduce the cost of transportation, manufacturing, and all household goods," said Trump last Thursday during the Republican National Convention.
The problem with that is energy companies won't want to pump more oil if it gets too cheap, industry watchers say.
“You’re not going to produce so much that you decrease the price of your product that much,” Samantha Gross, director of energy security and climate initiative at the non-partisan think tank Brookings Institution.
A Dallas Fed nationwide energy survey showed firms need oil to be at $64 per barrel on average to profitably drill. On Wednesday, West Texas Intermediate (CL=F) hovered above $77 per barrel. Brent (BZ=F), the international benchmark price, exchanged hands just above $81 per barrel.
“The lower the price goes, the less US producers will drill [or] pump as fewer wells will be profitable,” Rebecca Babin, US senior energy trader at CIBC Private Wealth, told Yahoo Finance this week.
Fresh off a wave of consolidation, oil companies are focused on returning cash to shareholders and capital discipline— both of which “keep 'drill, baby, drill' in check,” said Babin.
“Consolidation will give acquiring companies more influence over US production. The larger companies have been more focused on capital returns and will likely be less influenced by political backdrop,” she added.
Trump’s biggest lever to influence producers would likely be easing permitting restrictions for drilling on public land, says Philip Rossetti, resident senior fellow for the energy policy program at center right-leaning think tank R Street Institute.
A look at the drilling permitting process in past years by the Government Accountability Office found that in 2016 when Democratic President Barack Obama was in office, it took an average of 196 days to review applications for permits. That process was cut by more than half by 2019 when Trump was in office.
“That’s a huge difference,” said Rossetti. “There is this big qualitative difference on how easy is it to navigate the process and increase production on federal land — which is a huge portion of our oil and gas production.”
Earlier this year the Biden administration raised the royalty rates by more than one-third to 16.67% on federal land drilling. Wall Street expects everything from royalties to pipeline restrictions to potentially be scaled back if Trump wins the presidency.
"I think you would have immediately much less energy restrictions," Neal Dingmann, Truist Securities energy research managing director, told Yahoo Finance on Wednesday.
The mere anticipation of production going materially higher could cause oil prices to "fall at least 10% if not closer to 20%" to the $70 or high-$60s per barrel level, said the analyst.
Conversely, if the Democrats keep control, with current restrictions in place, "prices [could] go up even over $90 a barrel," he added.
Despite Democrats' intention to wean the US off fossil fuels, it's worth noting the oil industry reached record profits and production during the Biden administration.
Yahoo Finance’s stats wizard Jared Blikre points out the S&P 500 Energy Select ETF (XLE) soared 218% from the start of Biden’s presidency, with the oil majors posting record profits as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine sent crude futures skyrocketing.
During the Trump administration, XLE fell 56% as demand plunged during the pandemic.
"Yes, Trump has some levers he could pull that could lower cost by increasing production, but those levers are only one component of energy prices that are mostly dictated by global markets," said Rossetti.
JPMorgan strategists see Brent's average falling from $83 in 2024 to $75 next year, in part due to decelerating demand growth and greater electric vehicle use.
In June oil alliance OPEC+ announced it would keep most of its reductions in place into 2025 but start a gradual unwind of its voluntary cuts in October. The oil alliance led by Saudi Arabia started cutting output in late 2022 in order to keep a floor on prices.
"My expectation is that Trump would go barter with the OPEC nations to increase production," Ed Hirs, senior fellow at the University of Houston, told Yahoo Finance.
Unlike other oil-producing countries, the US industry is privatized, making it more difficult to impact producers' output.
"[Trump's] intention for lower oil prices to benefit the public — this will come at the expense of the domestic oil industry," said Hirs.
It's one of those "be careful what you wish for" scenarios, he added.
Ines Ferre is a senior business reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X at @ines_ferre.
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