A quarterly survey of oil and gas companies is filled with words like “chaos,” “disaster,” “uncertainty” and “not helpful” to describe President Donald Trump’s policies during the first two months of his second term, a marked contrast to the optimism he and many Alaska officials are expressing about the state’s prospects under his “drill, baby drill” agenda.
The results published Wednesday are from the Dallas Fed Energy Survey, which questions executives at 200 companies involved in a range of oil and gas activities in Texas, New Mexico and Louisiana. Of 24 comments published from respondents of the most recent survey, all but a few expressed moderate to severe concerns about the impact of Trump policies such as widespread tariffs and geopolitical uncertainty.
“The administration’s chaos is a disaster for the commodity markets,” one respondent wrote. “‘Drill, baby, drill’ is nothing short of a myth and populist rallying cry. Tariff policy is impossible for us to predict and doesn’t have a clear goal. We want more stability.
Another respondent — echoing many of the comments — stated “the key word to describe 2025 so far is ‘uncertainty’ and as a public company, our investors hate uncertainty.” Another frequently expressed concern was Trump’s declared intention to drive U.S. oil prices lower — which will discourage investments in new projects and reduce earnings.
Many Alaska’s politicians are hailing a day-one executive order by Trump that orders the repeal of all federal regulations that inhibit maximum utilization of the state’s natural resources, although some concerns have been expressed about those resources being “pillaged” by outside entities without sufficient benefit to Alaskans.
Mixed opinions were offered by state lawmakers Thursday in response to the survey and its relevance for Alaska’s oil and gas industries.
“I’d say the oil and gas companies and service industry here in Alaska likely have the same concerns as those companies in Texas,” State Sen. Bill Wielechowski (D-Anchorage), who during an 18-year career has been heavily involved in oil industry legislation, stated in an email to the Empire. “Trade and tariff uncertainty make planning difficult anywhere, and rising costs from tariffs will have an impact on future projects. Planning oil developments in Alaska requires very long lead times, so the larger projects like Willow and Pikka are less likely to be impacted by this uncertainty and rising costs because they are so far along, but newer developments and infill drilling would be more sensitive.”
But ongoing projects in states such as Texas are significantly different than existing and proposed future projects in Alaska, said Sen. Robert Myers (R-North Pole).
“The primary problems that we’re seeing in the oil industry right now…are on the short-term, quick-return fracking side of the business,” he said during a press conference Thursday. “That’s not what we do here in Alaska. We do larger, longer lead-time projects, and those are going to be affected less by short-term economic turmoil and more by larger supply-and-demand fundamentals.”
Trump’s strongest supporters in Alaska’s all-Republican congressional delegation — Sen. Dan Sullivan and Rep. Nick Begich III — both sidestepped the criticisms voiced in the survey in responses to the Empire on Thursday.
“In the two months that President Trump has been in office, we have seen a renewed focus on restoring energy production, permitting reform, and rolling back the excessive regulations that have locked up Alaska and domestic production for years,” Begich said in a statement issued through a spokesperson. “I have met with several leaders in the industry to discuss Alaska’s energy future, and I remain focused on making sure we can responsibly develop our resources while also ensuring our state’s energy producers have the stability and certainty they need to invest and produce — for Alaska.”
Sullivan spokesperson Amanda Coyne, in an email, stated “Senator Sullivan is extremely optimistic about the opportunities to unleash Alaska’s resources for the benefit of Alaska’s families and the state’s future.” She also cited a U.S. Energy Information Administration report issued this month forecasting Alaska’s crude oil production will increase in 2026, the first rise since 2017, due to the new Nuna and Pikka projects — production of which came online during President Joe Biden’s administration.
Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy, also a strong Trump supporter, and U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski, who has expressed support for the president’s energy goals if not necessarily his tactics, did not respond to requests for comment about the Dallas survey.
Biden has been harshly criticized by Sullivan, Begich and other mostly Republican policymakers for actions including canceling oil and gas leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge originally awarded in 2021. A federal judge on Tuesday reversed that action by the U.S. Department of the Interior by ruling in favor of a state-owned investment bank that filed a lawsuit claiming the action was illegal.
The hope of many Trump supporters in Alaska — bolstered by his state-specific executive order — is a large-scale expansion of oil and gas activity will spur a revival in the state at a time it is suffering long-term financial struggles, widespread workforce shortages and a population decline forecast during the coming decades.
Trump and some top officials say examples of progress include interest expressed by foreign entities in investing in a long-discussed natural gas pipeline. But that comes with caveats — The New York Times on March 13 reported “under threat of new tariffs, officials and executives in Japan, South Korea and Taiwan are considering ways to participate in the plan called Alaska LNG.”
Legal experts, as well as people and organizations opposing such projects on environmental grounds, also say the gas pipeline and other projects such as proposed new oil fields are many years away — if ever — due to practical and legal challenges, plus the possibility a new president will change policies in four years.
Meanwhile, an economic downturn that could descend into a recession due to Trump’s policies is being forecast by national and global market experts, due to indicators such as U.S. consumer confidence dropping this week to its lowest level in more than four years. The president and some supporters say while a recession is a possibility, the longer-term impacts will benefit the U.S.
“We saw this pattern from the first Trump administration,” Myers said. “It comes in, there’s some turmoil regarding international trade, rates and things like that for a first year or two, and then it calms down. And on the one hand, what that’s going to mean is that Alaska is somewhat insulated from some of those ebbs and flows, because we’re looking at larger trends rather than just what’s happening day-to-day, month-to-month.”
Many respondents to the Dallas survey argue otherwise.
“Uncertainty around tariffs and trade policy continues to negatively impact our business, both for mid- to long-term planning and near-term costs,” one respondent wrote.
Among the uncertainties are the cost of vital items such as steel due to tariffs, and the status of global markets due to shakeups where Trump is embracing traditional adversaries such as Russia and spurning traditional allies such as Canada. Concern about Trump seeking oil prices of about $50 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate, rather than current prices of about $70, was detailed in several responses.
“The threat of $50 oil prices by the administration has caused our firm to reduce its 2025 and 2026 capital expenditures,” a respondent wrote. “‘Drill, baby, drill’ does not work with $50 per barrel oil. Rigs will get dropped, employment in the oil industry will decrease, and U.S. oil production will decline as it did during COVID-19.”
Another respondent wrote “oil prices have decreased while operating costs have continued to increase. To stimulate new activity, oil prices need to be in the $75-$80 per barrel range.”
Alaska’s oil prices, which currently are about $6 a barrel above West Texas rates, are critical to the state’s fiscal stability, and state lawmakers are currently struggling to patch a projected budget gap approaching $700 million if they pass a budget for the coming fiscal year that matches this year’s spending. Wielechowski stated he also shares the concern of those in the Dallas survey about low prices inhibiting investment in future projects.
“I would absolutely agree that the proposals of the Trump Administration to greatly expand United States oil production while keeping oil prices low are at odds,” Wielechowski wrote. “As oil prices drop, projects will become financially challenged and oil drilling will be curtailed. It’s economically not possible in the long term to have low oil prices and increased production – as oil prices drop, oil companies will stop drilling as fields become unprofitable.”
Among the handful of positive comments in the quarterly survey was a respondent who stated “the rate of accomplishment of the administration’s policy agenda will impact prices for natural gas in a favorable way.”
“Killing the climate change policies and instigating LNG exports, along with the increase in manufacturing and artificial intelligence demands, will increase natural gas consumption,” the respondent wrote. “Weather-related demand was higher this year, and that increased the drawdown in natural gas storage.”
Another respondent wrote “we are all busy here” while a third declared “we are seeing larger operators reduce rig count as consolidations settle out and the smaller operators pick up those rigs.”
“The rig market has mostly softened to levels conducive to drilling,” the latter respondent wrote. “Casing looks like it will be a bottleneck but not a showstopper. Our outlook is positive as we enter the second quarter of 2025.”
• Contact Mark Sabbatini at mark.sabbatini@juneauempire.com or (907) 957-2306.
