Recorded on December 5, 2024 and November 11, 2024

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Episode 121 of the PetroNerds podcast is another PetroNerds special, recorded on November 11th, 2024, with Chris Wright at Liberty Energy’s office in Denver, Colorado. This is right after the election victory of Donald Trump’s second term and days before Chris Wright is officially named Trump’s pick for US Energy Secretary. Jason Isaac, the President of the American Energy Institute, hosts and moderates a panel discussion with Chris Wright and Trisha Curtis, the CEO of PetroNerds and Economist for the American Energy Institute.

Trisha Curtis opens this podcast with a jam-packed intro covering oil price moves, the OPEC Plus cut extension, France’s political chaos, and what Trump means for US energy and global energy. She tries to clarify the opportunity and leverage and levers this new Administration has on energy, from sanctions on Iran to refilling the SPR to lifting the “pause” on permits for new LNG exports.

In the panel discussion, Chris Wright talks about energy sobriety and the importance of energy knowledge, energy policy, and energy security. When speaking about President-elect Trump and energy, Chris said, “He intuitively gets it… Energy is not a sector of the economy; it is the sector of the economy that enables everything else we do. If we get energy wrong, nothing else matters.” He talks about bad energy policies that do not help the environment and hurt people’s lives.

Trisha Curtis talks about the difference between Biden and Trump, the complete change that will be seen in energy and broader policies, high energy prices and lots of regulations under Biden, and the night-and-day policy switch with Trump and the current market euphoria. She gets into the delta between what you are charged for natural gas by utility companies and the actual price of natural gas, a gap of about $20, and she talks about adding more natural gas into the electricity pool, stemming the decommissioning of coal, lowering US electric bills, building out more natural gas infrastructure in the US, and exporting more natural gas.

Chris Wright gets into Trisha’s favorite subjects, China, manufacturing, and coal! Chris talks about building infrastructure in the US for manufacturing and industry and consuming more domestic energy for manufacturing. “We could produce 20 percent more in natural gas.” Trisha talks about China and tariff exposure to China and what Trump intends to do. Trisha and Chris talk about Germany and China and the bad policies in Germany, energy and otherwise.

Jason Isaac brings up the high standards of US air quality. Chris talks about growing up in Denver and the improvement in air quality. Jason asks Trisha to talk about economics and tariffs, and Trisha gets into China and tariffs and explains the need for hawkishness on China and the need for tariffs with a foreign adversary. She gets into Iran and their crude exports to China as well as the cheap China goods coming into the US and the need to make these goods in the US. Trisha comments on “decoupling” with China and the need to be more hawkish and more educated on China. Chris says, “Everything you hold dear relies on energy,” and he says we are definitely going to see a shift toward affordable and secure energy and the need to address the grid and affordable power. “Trajectory and dialogue” first, then the reality will come later.

In the question and answer session, an attendee asks about EPA rules and the ability for the EPA to unwind or roll some of those rules back. Chris Wright explains that this will take some time and this will be tricky, but rolling back some regulations and bold actions for energy sobriety will probably be implemented. Trisha Curtis added to that answer by talking about Trump pulling out of the Paris Climate Accords and the dramatic shifts in what the EPA will be doing and pushing.

Chris talks about Reagan as a reformer and, while he could not shrink the size of the government, he did stop the growth. He expects Trump to implement even greater reforms and seek to reduce the growth and size of the government.

A local senator asks about Colorado politics vs. the US, and Chris Wright talks about how he has pointed out to the Governor of Colorado that shale activity has not returned to Colorado and speaks to the overall top-down regulation and size of the government and policies. Chris also talks about how Liberty built a manufacturing facility in Oklahoma, not in Colorado, because of the regulation. Trisha explains that Colorado is likely to double down on the aggressive energy policies and decarbonization efforts and comments on how anti-business Colorado is becoming.

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