Trump Energy Policy May Finally End the Rule of OPEC

In November 2014 I wrote about the attack OPEC started on the American oil industry. Saudi Arabia said it wanted to put the American frackers out of business. Then-President Barack Obama did nothing. He was opposed to the oil industry and was more in favor of non-carbon based sources of energy.

OPEC bet their countries’ economies on this attack and started production increases to lower the price of oil. By February 2016 West Texas crude was selling for about $25 a barrel. In December of 2015, President Obama, in order to get an Omnibus spending bill, agreed to eliminate the export ban of oil and natural gas.

We had prohibited the export of crude oil since the Carter administration because of the embargoes OPEC brought against the United States. These embargoes were driven by Iran. At the end of 2016, after only 12 months out from under the export restriction, we were exporting about 5.2 million barrels a day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Baker Hughes produces a report on the number of drilling rigs operating on a global basis. At the end of June 2017, here are its numbers: U.S. rigs 940, up 509 from 12 months ago; Canada 189, up 113 from a year ago. Now as we look at the rest of the world, including all the OPEC nations and Russia, as of June 2017, there were 957 wells or a total increase of just two net drilling wells from the year before.

The American oil industry is booming again. In fact, one can see from the numbers above that America only needs 17 new wells to equal the total number of internationally producing oil wells. I fully expect America to have the greatest number of producing wells in the world by the end of this year. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry recently reported that the President wants America to be the dominant source of energy in the world.

It is absolutely in America’s best interest to become energy-independent because in doing so we will no longer be at the mercy of energy cartels that would dictate to us what we can and can’t do. When Donald Trump was running for both the nomination and later the presidency, he made his now world famous quote, “I want to make America great again.”

Early on I knew that bringing jobs back to America wouldn’t be enough to produce greatness. What America needed was a big idea, something like Kennedy’s concept of putting an American on the moon. With a new goal for America, we could put millions of people back to work, build personal wealth, increase tax revenue even with lower income tax rates, and help reduce the size of government. To do this, Mr. Trump’s idea is to make America the largest source of energy in the world.

In order to do this, Secretary of Energy Perry said, “We need to explore all sources of energy including nuclear. We are committed to developing all of our energy resources.” Mr. Perry noted that by doing this, it will be good for America and good for the world, and we can still have a clean environment.

Read rest at LifeZette