Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. We do want to
Speaker 1: stick with energy twenty eight Democratic California lawmakers writing a
Speaker 1: letter to the Trump administration condemning plans to boost oil
Speaker 1: drilling along the state's coastline. US Interior Secretary Doug Bergham
Speaker 1: joins US now Secretary Burgram, thank you so much for
Speaker 1: being with us. I want to start with just how
Speaker 1: important it is right now for the United States to
Speaker 1: increase energy supplies across the board, not just with drilling,
Speaker 1: but across the board the face of the demand coming
Speaker 1: from AI.
Speaker 2: Well, good morning, Lisa.
Speaker 3: Yes, it's absolutely essential, and this is part of the
Speaker 3: just announced National Security Plan that the White House has released.
Speaker 3: That Security plan mentions energy twenty three times. There's an
Speaker 3: entire section about energy dominance, and folks should think about
Speaker 3: energy dominance as the ability for the US to sell
Speaker 3: energy to our friends and allies so they don't have
Speaker 3: to buy it from adversary. Is particularly those adversaries that
Speaker 3: are either funding terrorism or are funding wars, actively funding
Speaker 3: war machines, and so it's core to the strategy right now.
Speaker 3: But it's also, as you've talked about on the show,
Speaker 3: is about with AI because never before in a history
Speaker 3: have we been able to convert a kill a lot
Speaker 3: of electricity into intelligence. The demand for that, regardless of
Speaker 3: stock prices or stock movements, the demand for AI for
Speaker 3: intelligence applied to every job, every company, every industry is
Speaker 3: going to continue to increase the demand for electricity around
Speaker 3: the world. The US as an energy dominant country, now
Speaker 3: the largest oil producer in the world, largest LNG exporter
Speaker 3: in the world, and growing quickly with that strategy. It
Speaker 3: bodes well for the future of the US, both in
Speaker 3: terms of peace and in terms of prosperity.
Speaker 4: Secretaire, I'm sure you're aware WTI is under sixty dollars
Speaker 4: a barrel. What's the impetus for the oil and gas
Speaker 4: companies in the United States to continue drilling wells at
Speaker 4: this price level, which potentially could be a loss for them.
Speaker 3: Well, I think one thing that we know that in
Speaker 3: Trump administration, we're cutting red tape so rapidly. We think that,
Speaker 3: you know, one of the early targets we had was
Speaker 3: cut ten percent of the cost away from those producers
Speaker 3: just by cutting red tape. So if you think about,
Speaker 3: you know, sixty bucks a day might be what sixty
Speaker 3: seven bucks was a year ago because of our ability
Speaker 3: to take cost out.
Speaker 2: For those producers.
Speaker 3: And there's example after example, whether it's from the EPA,
Speaker 3: the Department of Energy, Department of Interior, where we've been
Speaker 3: able to help reduce costs. And of course this industry
Speaker 3: has been better than almost any in terms of gaining
Speaker 3: you know, productivity. The shale producers now drilling three mile
Speaker 3: laterals instead of two mile laterals, up to four mile
Speaker 3: laterals in many places offshore. We've seen examples overseas of
Speaker 3: people driving building ten mile laterals when they're getting after
Speaker 3: the shale rock, all with the same small well pad
Speaker 3: on the surface. So, you know, great for great for
Speaker 3: land management, and great for energy production.
Speaker 2: And kudos to this industry.
Speaker 3: This, the entire shale revolution has occurred through innovation, and
Speaker 3: that innovation is going to continue, and with AI applied
Speaker 3: to that, it's going to even get even better. So
Speaker 3: I see the leading companies are getting their costs down
Speaker 3: even as demand is going up.
Speaker 4: But Baker Hughes is talking about drilling reactivity has fallen
Speaker 4: sixteen percent since Trump took office this year. The President
Speaker 4: loves to talk about drill, baby, drill. Do you expect
Speaker 4: that to change those numbers to change next year.
Speaker 3: Well, I think again, I have to take a look
Speaker 3: at the at the numbers. When we talk about drilling activity.
Speaker 3: In my home state of North Dakota, we had a
Speaker 3: number of the well count was going down, but the
Speaker 3: miles of lateral productive rock could be going up. And
Speaker 3: so you know, analysts have got to make sure that
Speaker 3: they're actually keeping up with how fast this industry is changing,
Speaker 3: because we've got again record production occurring right now and
Speaker 3: we expect to see records through twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: One area where you have seen price increases has been
Speaker 1: natural gas. Natural gas prices rising to the highest levels
Speaker 1: in the US going back to twenty twenty two, and
Speaker 1: a real question on how much the US can continue
Speaker 1: to export to places like Europe in the face of
Speaker 1: significantly higher prices here in.
Speaker 2: The United States.
Speaker 1: How do you plan to sort of set policy so
Speaker 1: that the US can be a big exporter to places
Speaker 1: like Europe while not allowing prices to go up so
Speaker 1: significantly in the future.
Speaker 3: Well, again, the key is its supply and its infrastructure.
Speaker 3: We have places in the US right now where again
Speaker 3: there's not one price for gas in America. As you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, even though we've got the markets and we've
Speaker 3: got Henry Hub, but we've got we've got.
Speaker 2: Widely raging prices.
Speaker 3: I mean even in the difference of price in Pennsylvania
Speaker 3: versus in New England because the lack of natural gas
Speaker 3: pipelines that have been blocked into places like New England.
Speaker 3: And when we think about we think about markets, you're
Speaker 3: talking about AI and the capital span and going against
Speaker 3: AI where we're an AI factory, where we're actually creating
Speaker 3: in manufacturing intelligence, those plants are going to go to
Speaker 3: the places where states have low electricity prices, and policies
Speaker 3: are setting price, not just markets, and we've got policies
Speaker 3: in blue states around our country. California. You mentioned California.
Speaker 3: Sixty three percent of California's oil is being imported from
Speaker 3: foreign countries because of blocking of pipelines coming into that state.
Speaker 3: They have a record number of internal combustion cars in California.
Speaker 3: They have more internal combustion cars than any other state
Speaker 3: as cars. And yet two refineries have announced that they're
Speaker 3: shutting down in California because of policies, not because of
Speaker 3: lack of demand, not because of lack of consumers, and
Speaker 3: so what's.
Speaker 2: Going to happen.
Speaker 3: You're going to have oil tankers and refined products coming
Speaker 3: into San Francisco Bay and coming into Long Beach and
Speaker 3: record numbers in California because of policies, they will have
Speaker 3: higher gas prices than virtually any other state. So again,
Speaker 3: we have a strategy in America to help every state.
Speaker 3: The Trump administration wants to have low affordable energy prices
Speaker 3: for everybody, whether it's heating your home or driving your car,
Speaker 3: or producing electricity for AI.
Speaker 2: But we're going to need the collaboration from states to
Speaker 2: make sure.
Speaker 3: And if states don't want to collaborate on that, then
Speaker 3: you're going to see this trillion dollars at AI, a
Speaker 3: historic amount of spend, all going towards states that have
Speaker 3: pro energy policies that drive down prices.
Speaker 4: Secretary, we've seen a significant increase in energy costs, especially
Speaker 4: for individuals who live near data centers. How is the
Speaker 4: US going to do both at once, both support these
Speaker 4: AI inities but also make sure consumers energy prices remain affordable.
Speaker 3: Well, if you said on the show, I mean these
Speaker 3: prices are in electricity are local, not national. And so
Speaker 3: there are the examples that you think we're driving that
Speaker 3: analysis right now and we're going to be publishing that
Speaker 3: from the White House to the National Energy Dominance Council,
Speaker 3: the Department of Energy doing great work on that. But
Speaker 3: a lot of the higher prices that you're seeing are
Speaker 3: not related to the AI data centers. A lot of
Speaker 3: the day A data centers are going to be off
Speaker 3: the grid, behind the meter and then producing adding more energy,
Speaker 3: and then and putting some of that energy onto the grid.
Speaker 2: So we could be actually increasing.
Speaker 3: The supply in some of those areas where we've got
Speaker 3: increased pricing, it's because of the policies they pursued the
Speaker 3: last five years of having unreliable, intermittent and highly subsidized
Speaker 3: and projects, including things like offshore wind where people were
Speaker 3: spending eleven billion dollars to create one gigawatt of intermittent
Speaker 3: you know, versus spending one or two billion dollars to
Speaker 3: create one gigawat of assured seven by twenty four hour power.
Speaker 3: So the policy choices of the last five years, driven
Speaker 3: by sometimes climate extremists, were the ones that were that
Speaker 3: were that are.
Speaker 2: Driving up the prices that you're seeing.
Speaker 3: I mean, electricity costs three times as much in New
Speaker 3: England as it does in North Dakota. That is not
Speaker 3: that is not because of data centers. That's because of policies.
Speaker 1: US Interior Secretary Doug Brogham, thank you so much.