Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news.
Speaker 2: Let's transition now to Washington, where the US Department of
Speaker 2: Energy has outlined their energy roadmap focused on unleashing American
Speaker 2: energy innovation and strengthening power grid reliability and security. I'm
Speaker 2: pleased to say that US Energy Secretary Chris Wright, who
Speaker 2: was confirmed just last week, joins us now for an
Speaker 2: exclusive interview. It's such a pleasure to have you, mister Secretary.
Speaker 3: Thank you for joining.
Speaker 1: Us, Thanks for having me, Alex. Great to be here,
Speaker 1: you bet so.
Speaker 3: Last time we talked, you were CEO of and Oil.
Speaker 2: Company, and now you run energy policy for the United States.
Speaker 2: That's a big change. What do you say when I
Speaker 2: ask you.
Speaker 3: The question, what oil price do you guys want right now?
Speaker 4: Well, I don't want any oil price right now lowers better.
Speaker 4: The President got elected to bring down energy prices and
Speaker 4: broader prices across the economy and grow opportunities for American
Speaker 4: So my goal right now is more energy of all kinds,
Speaker 4: more affordable, reliable, secure energy to expand American opportunities.
Speaker 3: But the easy pickings are oil. So what's the price?
Speaker 2: And I say this because with your dual hat, right,
Speaker 2: if you're an oil producer, you don't want sixty dollars oil.
Speaker 2: You want to make more money for the oil. As
Speaker 2: energy secretary, you want sixty dollars oil.
Speaker 1: Well, all we can.
Speaker 4: Do supply and demand will be decided by well consumers
Speaker 4: in the marketplace and producers. But what we can do
Speaker 4: and what we're focused on, is reducing the cost to
Speaker 4: produce a barrel of oil. So for producers, they could
Speaker 4: have lower oil prices and the same profitability if their
Speaker 4: costs were reduced. So the last administration spent four years
Speaker 4: trying to put all sorts of barriers make it harder
Speaker 4: and riskier to produce oil in the United States.
Speaker 1: We're going to do the opposite.
Speaker 4: We're going to try to enable producers to bring on
Speaker 4: supply at lower costs and greater certainty.
Speaker 5: So I'm going to follow up on that Chris and
Speaker 5: ask how can you lower the cost curve for company
Speaker 5: is to invest in new development and not just use
Speaker 5: money to offset regular well declines.
Speaker 4: Yes, So one of the biggest challenges investing in oil
Speaker 4: and gas infrastructure over the last bunch of years has
Speaker 4: been uncertainty. If you produce more products, can you get
Speaker 4: it to market? You know, we still have six states
Speaker 4: in New England without a reliable supply of natural gas.
Speaker 4: That's bad for producers, that's bad for consumers. But there's
Speaker 4: a number of barriers like that.
Speaker 1: That we can move out of the way.
Speaker 4: LNG export pause, for example, everybody in India is alarmed
Speaker 4: they might not get an increasing supply of natural gas.
Speaker 4: And how are American producers of natural gas can to
Speaker 4: invest more in gas production infrastructure if.
Speaker 1: They're not sure if they can get it to market.
Speaker 4: So I think, you know, we can help the consumers
Speaker 4: of India, the population of the United States, and producers
Speaker 4: of natural gas by just removing those uncertainties and going
Speaker 4: back to regular, common sense business.
Speaker 5: Removing uncertainty is one thing, But I'm curious whether there's
Speaker 5: a ceiling on US crew production right now that EIA
Speaker 5: is projecting a two point three percent increase in US
Speaker 5: crew production, how much higher do you think realistically that
Speaker 5: could go.
Speaker 4: Well, again, that's going to be the ability to build
Speaker 4: infrastructure and access more consumers, but I think it could
Speaker 4: grow meaningfully. It's probably not going to grow meaningfully in
Speaker 4: the short run, although our natural gas production I think
Speaker 4: is going to grow dramatically in the next two or
Speaker 4: three years. But if you look at five or ten years,
Speaker 4: could America grower oil production significantly?
Speaker 1: Absolutely, mister Secretary, to that point.
Speaker 2: In terms of building out infrastructure, that's been very difficult,
Speaker 2: in terms of permitting, in terms of getting something in
Speaker 2: the ground, that's been very hard to Tariffs and higher
Speaker 2: prices for aluminum and steel and things like that make
Speaker 2: that even harder for you.
Speaker 4: Look at tariff's what's been the big issues for this
Speaker 4: president that he ran on, you know, the economic well
Speaker 4: being of Americans and the national security of our country
Speaker 4: and our citizens. So we've had twenty plus years of
Speaker 4: sort of de industrializing the United States and letting our
Speaker 4: heavy industry flow overseas. This president is passionate about increasing
Speaker 4: national security, and that means we have to have the
Speaker 4: ability to build heavy steel intensive, illumina intensive, material intensive
Speaker 4: systems in our country. Again, so this is an attempt,
Speaker 4: I believe, by our president to incentivize the reindustrialization of America.
Speaker 2: Talking about different forms of energy because as you pointed out,
Speaker 2: like it's not just oil right, all forms of energy,
Speaker 2: it's energy security.
Speaker 3: What role do you think coal is going to play
Speaker 3: in that?
Speaker 4: The coal has been essential to the United States is
Speaker 4: energy system for over one hundred years. It's been the
Speaker 4: largest source of global electricity for nearly one hundred years,
Speaker 4: and it will be for decades to come.
Speaker 1: So we need to be realistic about that.
Speaker 4: Now with coal, are we going to see a renaissance
Speaker 4: in surging coal production in the United States? Not likely,
Speaker 4: But we're all on a path to continually shrink the
Speaker 4: electricity we generate from coal. That's made electricity more expensive
Speaker 4: and our grid less stable. So I think the best
Speaker 4: we can hope for in the short term is to
Speaker 4: stop the closure of coal power plants.
Speaker 1: No one has won by that action, you know.
Speaker 5: I was looking at the energy roadmap that you've published
Speaker 5: the Department has published, and the word security comes up
Speaker 5: so many times. I'm wondering why or does energy security
Speaker 5: also include solar and wind, and if not, why not?
Speaker 4: Well, the goal is We're not specific to any particular
Speaker 4: energy production technology. The goal is just affordable, reliable, secure
Speaker 4: energy from wherever that comes from. Obviously there's going to
Speaker 4: be roles in the long run for solar energy. There's
Speaker 4: places where it makes tons of sense, where where the
Speaker 4: natural resources are there in the infrastructure is benefited.
Speaker 1: By adding more solar to the grid.
Speaker 4: But I will say one thing for sure, We're not
Speaker 4: going to go down the road of Germany. You know,
Speaker 4: they spend half a trillion dollars, They more than doubled
Speaker 4: their price of electricity.
Speaker 1: They actually shrunk the total.
Speaker 4: Amount of electricity the country produces by about twenty percent,
Speaker 4: and their industry is fleeing the country. That's the path
Speaker 4: the United States was starting to go down.
Speaker 1: But that's the wrong path.
Speaker 5: So, if I'm hearing you correctly, there is a role
Speaker 5: for things like solar and wind. Yet some of the
Speaker 5: President's executive orders can be seen as clear moves to
Speaker 5: stifle those industries.
Speaker 4: I guve stifle might be the wrong word, but we
Speaker 4: shouldn't subsidize technologies that ultimately just make our energy more
Speaker 4: expensive and less reliable. I don't think you'll see policies
Speaker 4: that continue to.
Speaker 1: Go down that road.
Speaker 2: One other policy, as well, as nuclear, we've seen a
Speaker 2: real resurgence in restarting some nuclear facilities. The previous administration
Speaker 2: was looking towards domestic uranium production, and I'm wondering if
Speaker 2: you would continue down that road, because we need that.
Speaker 2: If nuclear is a big part of that solution.
Speaker 1: Absolutely.
Speaker 4: One of the industries we've lost in this country are
Speaker 4: lost in large part is the ability to produce nuclear
Speaker 4: materials generate nuclear power. Ultimately, we need that infrastructure here,
Speaker 4: we need that mining here, we need that uranium enrichment here,
Speaker 4: we need that to again be building and growing our
Speaker 4: production of nuclear energy. So absolutely, our hope is to
Speaker 4: really start the American nuclear renaissance as fast as we can.
Speaker 2: So then let's talk about some of the legislative ways
Speaker 2: that you feel like the administration can manage this. Because
Speaker 2: the Democrats came out with the IRA what can the
Speaker 2: Republicans come out with that can prevent something more dramatic
Speaker 2: being done down the road under a different administration. What
Speaker 2: specifically can you guys get done.
Speaker 4: Oh, I think there's a lot of things now, some
Speaker 4: of these we've heard talked about for years, but no action,
Speaker 4: just common sense permitting reform. America became this phenomenal industrial
Speaker 4: powerhouse by people building things in America, investing money, taking risks.
Speaker 4: We built a highway system, a pipeline system, an electricity
Speaker 4: grid in plants. We've come to a point in America
Speaker 4: today where it's very easy to stop something from being
Speaker 4: built and it's very hard to build something. We need
Speaker 4: to reverse that, and a lot of that is going
Speaker 4: to be through legislation.
Speaker 3: That is a part of it too.
Speaker 2: I wonder though, in terms of say federal lands, for example,
Speaker 2: like selling federal acreage to the state of Alaska so
Speaker 2: it can do what say Texas does more concrete, smaller
Speaker 2: things like this.
Speaker 4: Yeah, look, all ideas are on the table, and all
Speaker 4: ideas are being discussed. At a minimum, we're going to
Speaker 4: see common sense permitting on federal lands. Of course, this
Speaker 4: president and this administration loves the wilderness and wildlife and
Speaker 4: the ever cleaner air in waters that I've enjoyed throughout
Speaker 4: my lifetime.
Speaker 1: There's no change in any of that.
Speaker 4: But we have so many obstructions that don't allow roads
Speaker 4: to be built on federal land, Roads that could be
Speaker 4: used for logging and wildfire control, roads that could access
Speaker 4: mining and minerals production. So I think we're going to
Speaker 4: see just a return of common sense to use the
Speaker 4: federal lands what they were intended to be used for.
Speaker 3: Now, let's switch to a different part of the administration.
Speaker 2: That's in terms of money being doled out the Department
Speaker 2: of Loans. It was very contentious under the Biden administration
Speaker 2: in terms of the money that was going out the
Speaker 2: door in relation to the IRA. What's your guys's plan.
Speaker 2: Are you going to divert the money to projects that
Speaker 2: you guys like? Are you going to kind of roll
Speaker 2: back funding for projects you didn't like?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I'm inheriting a portfolio.
Speaker 4: So the first thing I'm doing from the day one
Speaker 4: I walked in the office is to understand what is
Speaker 4: our existing loan portfolio. Who do we have loans out,
Speaker 4: what are the terms under which they are, which projects
Speaker 4: are midway, which projects haven't launched yet. So I've got
Speaker 4: to follow the law and manage what I've inherited. And
Speaker 4: then there's a lot of moneies uncommitted or early on,
Speaker 4: and of course those will be deployed to advance the
Speaker 4: president's agenda of affordable, reliable, secure energy. We just saw
Speaker 4: recently the Ivanpad nuclear power plant, I mean solar power plant,
Speaker 4: sorry about that. You know, a concentrated solar plant out
Speaker 4: in the California Nevada desert right near the state line there.
Speaker 4: That's a one certainly north of a billion dollar loss
Speaker 4: in taxpayer funds for something that's not producing a single
Speaker 4: watt of power today, and during its brief lifetime, it
Speaker 4: produced very unreliable, expensive power.
Speaker 1: We don't want to do things like that.
Speaker 4: We want to focus on American consumers and not subsidizing
Speaker 4: this industry.
Speaker 1: Or that industry.
Speaker 4: We want the marketplace in consumers to pull what energy
Speaker 4: is in demand.
Speaker 5: Of course, but you also have your own priorities. I'm wondering,
Speaker 5: would you cancel loans that have already been.
Speaker 1: Doled We will follow the laws.
Speaker 4: So that's what I'm doing right now is rigorously looking
Speaker 4: at what is the status of those loans, what is
Speaker 4: the status of those projects, and no things that we
Speaker 4: inherit that are half pregnant that are going on, we
Speaker 4: will continue to honor the law.
Speaker 5: Mister Secretary, I want to ask you about the SPR
Speaker 5: the strategic Petroleum Reserve. President Trump has vowed to refill
Speaker 5: that quote right to the top. What is the appropriate
Speaker 5: volume for the seven hundred million barrel reserve?
Speaker 4: So look, I'm not going to talk specifics right here,
Speaker 4: but as you just hear right in that name the
Speaker 4: strategic petroleum reserve, that's not the electoral advantage strategic, I
Speaker 4: mean petroleum reserve that we use to drive down energy
Speaker 4: prices around election times. That's not what it's for, right
Speaker 4: The strategic petroleum reserve is things can go wrong, we
Speaker 4: can have a strategic crisis, and we don't want America's consumers,
Speaker 4: in America's military at risk of an energy shortage. So
Speaker 4: we need a robust strategic reserve that makes America ready
Speaker 4: for whatever may come.
Speaker 2: Do you know how much you're going to ask Congress
Speaker 2: for and how fast you can refill it, mister secretary.
Speaker 4: That's being evaluated in discussed right now. So no, I've
Speaker 4: got no scoop or no news to leak on that
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 1: But it is a good question you're asking.
Speaker 3: Oh, come on, maake some news of me, and that'd
Speaker 3: be a bunch more fun.
Speaker 2: All right, next time you'll come back and you'll tell us.
Speaker 2: I guess my question is, what's the conversation you're having
Speaker 2: now with say, big oil companies on that. Have you
Speaker 2: been able to start this conversation.
Speaker 1: Now right now?
Speaker 4: I'm looking internally at what's in our department right now,
Speaker 4: what's in our technology.
Speaker 1: Portfolio, and what are the barriers.
Speaker 4: That the government has in place that we can do
Speaker 4: something about. I have not had any dialogues with Big
Speaker 4: Oil or any of the industry players since I've assumed
Speaker 4: my role, not that I won't going forward, but right
Speaker 4: now I'm trying to understand where are the biggest problems,
Speaker 4: how can we get the shortest term biggest wins.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, it seems like everyone in is during that
Speaker 5: right now, trying to assess the situation. And I'm curious
Speaker 5: whether the members of DOOJE, the squad that's embedded at
Speaker 5: the Department of Energy, have requested access to any classified information.
Speaker 1: They have not.
Speaker 4: And I've met the DOGE team that's at Department of
Speaker 4: Energy and liked them a lot. These are passionate people
Speaker 4: that are coming into like looking very specifically right now
Speaker 4: at the flow of funds going out and the systems
Speaker 4: we use to carry out our basic business functions. How
Speaker 4: can we be smarter and more efficient doing what we do,
Speaker 4: and how can we be very careful to know where
Speaker 4: funds are flowing and where they're not flowing.
Speaker 1: So it's much less intrusive than a.
Speaker 4: Typical corporate audit, but it's giving quick, up to date
Speaker 4: information to help me and the rest of the department
Speaker 4: run more efficiently and be better stewards of the taxpayer,
Speaker 4: taxpayer funds the deal.
Speaker 2: He was quick to say that there's no nuclear secrets
Speaker 2: being given away or anything along those lines, and I
Speaker 2: put that in quotes. But is there a circumstance where
Speaker 2: you would have to turn that over? Is that become
Speaker 2: aware of any of this in any point?
Speaker 4: I've heard nothing about that at all. We did security
Speaker 4: vetting on the small team that we have. They have
Speaker 4: read only access to very limited parts of our systems.
Speaker 4: No one has asked or expressed any interest, and we
Speaker 4: would definitely not share the secrets of our nuclear weapons
Speaker 4: program and our non proliferation and all those efforts.
Speaker 1: That's that's not part of DOGE. This is not a
Speaker 1: reckless effort.
Speaker 4: In fact, it's a very focused and thoughtful effort to
Speaker 4: quickly look for ways to improve how we run the business.
Speaker 5: Right, to streamline things, make things more efficient. We understand
Speaker 5: the purpose there behind OAJ. So I guess the question
Speaker 5: for you, mister secretary, is how lean can the DOE get?
Speaker 1: Then we don't know yet. We don't know yet.
Speaker 4: But if you take an organization that hasn't been carefully
Speaker 4: looked at, are we finding low hanging fruit to reduce
Speaker 4: our expenditures? And deliver the same output. I can say
Speaker 4: that's an unqualified.
Speaker 1: Yes, we are.
Speaker 4: How big those savings are going to be, well, it's
Speaker 4: a little early for that, but they.
Speaker 1: Will be meaningful.
Speaker 4: We will find meaningful savings, savings and efficiencies without any
Speaker 4: degradation of our output. In fact, I think we're going
Speaker 4: to see dramatically different output our our agendas energy addition,
Speaker 4: and I'm taking over for you know, administration. This goal
Speaker 4: was energy subtraction. So I think we're going to see
Speaker 4: far more output and productivity at reduced costs.
Speaker 1: That's the plan.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's what oil companies do, so you are
Speaker 2: very familiar with that way of operating. Mister secretary, before
Speaker 2: we let you go, you mentioned stopping closure of coal plants,
Speaker 2: et cetera. We were talking about nuclear, We're talking about
Speaker 2: the growth of LNG exports, et cetera. What do you
Speaker 2: think in the United States has the most potential to
Speaker 2: be the next big thing, to be the next US shale?
Speaker 4: I mean, well, I think for the you know, in
Speaker 4: the short term, the next big exciting thing is continued
Speaker 4: evolution of shale. I mean, today, over seventy percent of
Speaker 4: the energy consumed in the United States comes from just
Speaker 4: two things, oil and natural gas. Now, one of the
Speaker 4: things I want to do is grow that pie of
Speaker 4: significant contributors, and probably the technology we know of today
Speaker 4: that could most meaningfully grow is nuclear, both these next
Speaker 4: generation small modular reactors. But also keep an eye on fusion.
Speaker 4: I went to college, I went down MIT forty years
Speaker 4: ago to work on fusion energy. We will see positive
Speaker 4: energy liberated from fusion machines in my tenure at the DOE,
Speaker 4: and commercial fusion may not be that far behind these aren't,
Speaker 4: you know, one year two years from now.
Speaker 1: But technology is moving fast, and I think.
Speaker 4: As you look out several years in the future, nuclear
Speaker 4: is going to.
Speaker 1: Be on the rise and add a.
Speaker 4: Lot of affordable, reliable, secure energy to America. It's got
Speaker 4: some ways to go from where we are today, but
Speaker 4: there's a great roadmap there that I'm quite excited about.
Speaker 2: Mister Secretary, Thank you so much. What a great way
Speaker 2: to adend. We really appreciate all the time that you
Speaker 2: gave us today. Let's check back in about fusion. I
Speaker 2: love that we can talk about this. Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Chris Wright, US Secretary of Energy