Biden’s Call for More OPEC Oil Is Still Bugging Shale CEOs

(Bloomberg) -- Cimarex Energy Co. Chief Executive Officer Tom Jorden on Wednesday became the latest to bristle at President Joe Biden’s call for more oil production from OPEC, rather than from homegrown shale companies like his.

Last month the Biden administration called on Saudi Arabia and its allies to unleash more crude onto global markets, stressing the importance of affordable energy. That request from a U.S. president to foreign producers rather than domestic explorers was “rather odd,” Jorden said Wednesday in a Barclays Plc investor webcast.

“If gasoline prices continue to creep up, the White House very well may be calling on U.S. producers to increase production,” Jorden said, adding that he has no specific insight from the administration. “The U.S. consumer is going to have just so much tolerance for high energy prices, and the U.S. producer has tremendous capacity to meet that demand if need be.”

Critics argue the U.S. could produce more of its own crude were it not for some environmental restrictions. Chevron Corp. CEO Mike Wirth has called for more engagement with the Biden administration on how the U.S. oil industry could help the government’s environmental and economic agendas.

So little oil production growth is expected in the U.S. that the world’s top providers of drilling and fracking services are reorienting their businesses around overseas customers and pivoting away from North America. Despite a strong recovery in crude prices in 2021, the shale industry is largely resisting a repeat of previous boom cycles when it added new supply and contributed to a global glut.
 

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.