{"id":27647,"date":"2016-12-01T11:30:14","date_gmt":"2016-12-01T17:30:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/?p=27647"},"modified":"2016-12-01T13:11:32","modified_gmt":"2016-12-01T19:11:32","slug":"from-closed-doors-to-open-arms-oklahoma-oil-industry-optimistic-about-business-under-president-trump","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/2016\/12\/01\/from-closed-doors-to-open-arms-oklahoma-oil-industry-optimistic-about-business-under-president-trump\/","title":{"rendered":"From Closed Doors to Open Arms, Oklahoma Oil Industry Optimistic About Business Under President Trump"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_27648\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 620px;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/iip-photo-archive\/29984357350\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-large wp-image-27648\" alt=\"Donald Trump campaigning at an immigration policy speech at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.\" src=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/files\/2016\/12\/trump-phoenix-620x413.jpg\" width=\"620\" height=\"413\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Gage Skidmore \/ Flickr\/CC BY-NC 2.0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-caption-text\">Donald Trump campaigning at an immigration policy speech at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona.<\/p>\n<\/div><p>From board rooms to drilling rigs, much of the U.S. fossil fuel industry has been counting down the days until President Barack Obama turns over the keys of the White House. Donald Trump doesn\u2019t officially take the wheel of the nation\u2019s energy policy for a couple of months, but Oklahoma\u2019s oil and gas industry says its prospects have already improved under the president-elect.<\/p><p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/w.soundcloud.com\/player\/?url=https%3A\/\/api.soundcloud.com\/tracks\/295730513&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false&visual=false\" height=\"150\" width=\"100%\" frameborder=\"no\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<!--more-->On the campaign trail, Trump wooed energy state voters and industry leaders. He promised to restore coal mining jobs in West Virginia and to clear regulatory hurdles for oil and natural gas producers in North Dakota. Trump has rubbed shoulders with and sought advice from Oklahoma energy executives like billionaire Harold Hamm of Continental Resources and promised to be a big friend to fossil fuel.<\/p><p>Panther Energy CEO Berry Mullennix says those gestures \u2014 even if they<i> are <\/i>lofty campaign promises \u2014 are already a 180-degree turn from attitudes in the Obama administration.<\/p><p>\u201cWhat we&#8217;ve seen happen over the last five or six years is an onslaught of regulations that the industry right or wrong feels have been put in place to help put the industry out of business,\u201d Mullennix says.<\/p>\n<h3>A seat at table<\/h3><p>Tulsa-based Panther has drilled a lot of wells in Oklahoma, Colorado and New Mexico over the years, and is now focused on producing oil and gas in Texas\u2019s prolific Permian Basin. Mullennix, who also serves on committees at national industry groups, says wind and solar companies and environmental groups were often in the room when the Obama administration discussed legislation and regulations. When oil and gas knocked, however, Mullenix says \u201cit was just a complete shut the door in our face.\u201d<\/p><p>\u201cDon&#8217;t bother from day one,\u201d he says about the oil and gas industry\u2019s efforts to weigh-in on looming federal oversight. \u201cNo discussion whatsoever. They believed that they knew everything they needed to know about our industry without even speaking to anyone.\u201d<\/p><p>Oklahoma Oil & Gas Association President Chad Warmington says Panther Energy is on a long list of Oklahoma oil and gas firms eager for a post-Obama federal government.<\/p><p>\u201cThat&#8217;s the hallmark of the Obama administration,\u201d he says, \u201cexclusion of industry and the discussions of regulations that they are considering and forcing on the industry.\u201d<\/p><p>Warmington says Oklahoma energy companies are cautiously optimistic about their outlook under Trump.<\/p><p>\u201cWhat we&#8217;re optimistic about is that he is a businessman who gets it. You need the people who are actually doing this activity to have a seat at the table to have the discussion,\u201d he says. \u201cIt doesn&#8217;t mean we&#8217;re going to get everything we want but we&#8217;re going to have the ability to have some some input into those regulations as they come down.\u201d<\/p>\n<h3>Fossil fueling feelings<\/h3><p>RT Dukes, a research director at energy consulting firm Wood Mackenzie, doesn\u2019t see Obama as a foe of fossil fuel. But he does agree: The energy industry is welcoming Trump\u2019s embrace, and attitude means something when it comes to energy markets.<\/p><p>\u201cI&#8217;m not sure that it changes concrete things but it maybe gives people more confidence to invest \u2014 that&#8217;s positive for people investing in Oklahoma, people investing in Texas,\u201d he says.<\/p><p>Trump will have a hard time unwinding all of Obama\u2019s environmental regulations, Dukes says, noting that a lot will be determined by who the president-elect names to key cabinet positions overseeing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and departments of Interior and Energy. Duke says Trump likely could soften the blow of the Clean Power Plan and methane regulations. And the president-elect could have a big hand in tax and pipeline policy, opening federal lands to drilling and inking international agreements with countries to trade oil and gas.<\/p><p>Dukes says today, presidents have a bigger effect on the U.S. fossil fuel industry because U.S. oil and gas companies are playing a larger role in world energy markets. That\u2019s due to the industry itself, and its runaway success in unlocking petroleum with horizontal drilling and fracking.<\/p><p>\u201cIf you look at the best performing economies since the recession it&#8217;s places like Texas, North Dakota, Oklahoma \u2014 oil and gas producing states that really carry the growth.\u201d<\/p><p>Dukes says much of that boom happened under President Obama\u2019s watch. Presidents do have a meaningful effect on the fossil fuel industry, he says, but nothing \u2014 even the White House \u2014 moves the needle like the value oil and natural gas itself.<\/p><p>\u201cIt\u2019s prices, prices, prices,\u201d Dukes says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From board rooms to drilling rigs, much of the U.S. fossil fuel industry has been counting down the days until President Barack Obama turns over the keys of the White House. Donald Trump doesn\u2019t officially take the wheel of the nation\u2019s energy policy for a couple of months, but Oklahoma\u2019s oil and gas industry says [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":36,"featured_media":27648,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[490],"tags":[683,678,238],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27647"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/36"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27647"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27647\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27655,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27647\/revisions\/27655"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27647"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27647"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/oklahoma\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27647"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}