Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Pittsburgh is host to
Speaker 1: the inaugural Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit. The event kicks
Speaker 1: off today with President Trump set to attend in just
Speaker 1: a few hours. For a look at the future of
Speaker 1: US energy and tech, Bloomberg's Tyler Kendo is standing by Tyler,
Speaker 1: Thanks so much, Ed.
Speaker 2: And I'm pleased to say that I'm joined by the
Speaker 2: US Energy Secretary, Christopher Right. Secretary Right, thank you so
Speaker 2: much for joining Bloomberg. And I want to start with
Speaker 2: one of the main reasons why we're here in Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: There is this surging demand for energy to help power
Speaker 2: artificial intelligence, and the administration focuses a lot on its
Speaker 2: deregulation agenda. Do you think that you can accomplish your
Speaker 2: goals fast enough to keep up with what has been
Speaker 2: a surge and energy consumption.
Speaker 3: I think we will. You're right, it's a challenge. I mean,
Speaker 3: the agenda of President Trump is to unleash American energy.
Speaker 3: The last four years the Biden administration was more to
Speaker 3: shackle American energy. But you're right, there's rapidly rising demand
Speaker 3: and what we as the government need to do is
Speaker 3: enable private businesses to build the things they want to
Speaker 3: build and invest in the things they want to build.
Speaker 3: We're not going to do this building ourselves, but we're
Speaker 3: going to enable private businesses to do it.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad that you brought up private businesses and
Speaker 2: to kind of put a finer point on this idea
Speaker 2: of urgency. We actually heard from Mark Zuckerberg yesterday pledging
Speaker 2: billions that Meta is going to invest in data centers,
Speaker 2: but it is raising concerns about an energy crisis to
Speaker 2: fuel it. I'm wondering, have you spoken to Zuckerberg or
Speaker 2: Meta about their plans.
Speaker 3: Oh, we speak Meta extensively about their plans, and yeah,
Speaker 3: there's a number of the hyperscalers that have huge investment opportunities.
Speaker 3: We're excited about that. This is the newest energy intensive
Speaker 3: industry to arise. That's what artificial intelligence is, energy intensive industry,
Speaker 3: taking them sophisticated, most expensive form of energy electricity and
Speaker 3: turning it into intelligence to transform more world and protect
Speaker 3: our nation. So yeah, Meta has huge investment plans, as
Speaker 3: does Amazon and Microsoft and Google and the other players
Speaker 3: in that space, and we need all of them will invest.
Speaker 3: It's a few hundred billion dollars this year. In fact,
Speaker 3: you'll hear at the conference today announcements it was seventy
Speaker 3: and I think now ninety billion dollars just in the
Speaker 3: state of Pennsylvania.
Speaker 2: When you hear big investments though, and how much energy
Speaker 2: that is going to take, what's your level of concern
Speaker 2: though that there is going to perhaps be such a
Speaker 2: great demand. Can the US really keep.
Speaker 1: Up with it?
Speaker 3: Absolutely? You know, United States energy production because of the
Speaker 3: shale revolution just exploded in the last ten or twelve years.
Speaker 3: Pennsylvania is a massive energy producer today. Pennsylvania exports more
Speaker 3: energy out of its state than any other state except
Speaker 3: for Texas. And Pennsylvania could massively grow its energy production,
Speaker 3: just doesn't have enough pipeline capacity to move that natural
Speaker 3: gas out of the state. So what's going to happen
Speaker 3: is more that gas or additional gas will be consumed
Speaker 3: in Pennsylvania, turned into electricity generated intelligence and keep the
Speaker 3: United States ahead of China in the AI race.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk about oil, and I also
Speaker 2: want to welcome in our audience that has just joined us.
Speaker 2: We were talking to the US Energy Secretary Christopher Wright.
Speaker 2: I'm Tyler Kendall. I want to show you some of
Speaker 2: these statistics that our analysts have, Bloomberg pulled that the
Speaker 2: US oil rig account has dropped thirteen percent since late February.
Speaker 2: It's in the midst of its longest contraction since twenty twenty.
Speaker 2: I know that there were some incentives in the reconciliation package,
Speaker 2: but what further incentives is the administration considering to help
Speaker 2: get forward these oil breaks to continue drilling.
Speaker 3: Mostly it's get out of the way. You know, we
Speaker 3: had the Biden administration had four years all of government
Speaker 3: approach to try to, as they said, end fossil fuels. Now,
Speaker 3: that didn't work very well. We went from eighty two
Speaker 3: percent of American energy coming from fossil fuels before Biden
Speaker 3: took office to eighty two percent exactly the same when
Speaker 3: he left office. That those are just simply the energy
Speaker 3: sources that power our country and our world today. But
Speaker 3: it's get out of the way of the marketplace. Right now,
Speaker 3: US production has grown so fast as has other places
Speaker 3: in the world, that prices are maybe at the low
Speaker 3: end of profitability for producers here, so you see a
Speaker 3: pullback and activity You're going to see with these new
Speaker 3: investments and economic growth in the United States, We're going
Speaker 3: to see growth in demand for oil, and of course
Speaker 3: that'll probably bump prices backed up a little bit, keep
Speaker 3: drillers active.
Speaker 2: Well, you mentioned there perhaps a lower price environment. And
Speaker 2: part of this also, when we're talking about costs that
Speaker 2: these companies are facing, has to do with tariffs, and
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you about copper in particular, which
Speaker 2: is essential to data centers and getting energy to help
Speaker 2: power AI. What sort of impact is a fifty percent
Speaker 2: copper terraft set to go into effect on August first,
Speaker 2: going to have when we're talking about the costs for
Speaker 2: energy infrastructure.
Speaker 3: Well, I think the biggest impact of that fifty percent
Speaker 3: Terrafund coffer is going to speed up copper mining in
Speaker 3: the United States. We have enormous copper resources here. We
Speaker 3: have some huge minds that have been trying to get
Speaker 3: going for years. We want to get copper production growing
Speaker 3: rapidly in this country. Copper, like steel, is just essential
Speaker 3: to everything that happens in the world.
Speaker 2: Should we expect the energy industry to get some sort
Speaker 2: of tariff carveout moving forward?
Speaker 3: I believe the President plans no special carve outs. He
Speaker 3: wants to reindustrialize the United States of America. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of tools to do that make it easy to
Speaker 3: invest in the United States, make it attractive to invest
Speaker 3: in the United States, and tariffs are an additional element
Speaker 3: of that toolbox.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're talking to industry, though. Is a carve
Speaker 2: out on the table? Are there any negotiations underway for say,
Speaker 2: the oil industry to get a carve out when it
Speaker 2: comes to the equipment that they use in the field,
Speaker 2: like copper or steel, for example.
Speaker 3: No discussions right now. We are hearing from the industry,
Speaker 3: and of course this is true. If you incrementally raise
Speaker 3: the cost of projects, that hurts the economics of them.
Speaker 3: We want to do everything we possibly can to maximize
Speaker 3: investments in the United States so jobs and opportunity come
Speaker 3: here to our country.
Speaker 2: Lastly, I just want to ask you a geopolitical question,
Speaker 2: because we did hear from President Trump yesterday for a name,
Speaker 2: one hundred percent so called secondary tariff on countries that
Speaker 2: import Russian energy supplies. If that were to go into effect,
Speaker 2: what would that do to prices in the global energy market.
Speaker 3: Something like that would likely drive oil prices up. I
Speaker 3: think President Trump's strong agenda there is to end the
Speaker 3: war in Ukraine. Our hope is that that large pressure
Speaker 3: will have an impact on Russia and we can bring
Speaker 3: just a brutal war in Eastern Europe to an end.
Speaker 3: That's President Trump's goal is prosperity at home and peace abroad,
Speaker 3: and the old formulas weren't working very well in that respect.
Speaker 3: So yeah, President Trump has very different tools, very different
Speaker 3: negotiating skills, and very different level of boldness. I think
Speaker 3: we're going to see tremendous growth in peace abroad and
Speaker 3: prosperity at home.
Speaker 2: All Right, we have to leave it there. US Energy
Speaker 2: Secretary Christopher Wright, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 2: This has been a conversation here in Pittsburgh on the
Speaker 2: sidelines of the Pennsylvania Energy and Innovation Summit.