Drilling Oil & Gas Wells NAICS 213111

Apr 23, 2025 - Tariffs Undermine Trump’s Oil Push

• President Trump’s aggressive trade policy is undermining his efforts to get US energy producers to drill for more oil and gas by raising drilling costs and driving down the price of oil, NBC News reports. In March, the administration raised the tariff on steel imports to the US 25%, increasing the cost of raw steel used to make the steel pipe used by energy companies. Moreover, US steel makers began hiking prices in February in anticipation of the tariffs. Economic uncertainty caused by Trump’s on-again-off-again tariffs, fears of a global trade war and a US recession have many drillers reluctant to start new projects. In April, US oil prices sank to their lowest level since 2021 on concerns that the tariffs will hurt economic growth.
• Energy producing states working to comply with the EPA’s final methane rule, are wondering if their efforts could be moot once President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, Politico reports. The EPA says the final rule will sharply reduce emissions of methane and other harmful air pollution from oil and natural gas operations — including, for the first time, from existing sources nationwide. However, in March, the Senate voted 52-47 to repeal the methane fee for oil and gas producers. Major oil companies previously supported the rule since they could afford compliance, but smaller producers opposed it due to financial burdens, according to OilPrice.com. Initially, the American Petroleum Institute, the trade association for oil and gas producers, supported the methane rule but later hailed its removal, calling it a “duplicative, punitive tax on American energy production that stifles innovation,” according to the AP.

• A US District Court has ruled the National Marine Fisheries Service’s (NMFS) biological opinion for oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico fails to protect an endangered species of whale and sturgeon, Oil & Gas Journal reports. The ruling by the US District Court could imperil federal offshore oil and gas leasing drilling in the Gulf, several energy trade association defendants in the case – Sierra Club v. NMFS – said. The court said it would vacate the biological opinion on Dec. 20, 2024, if NMFS fails to complete a new one. Siding with environmental groups, the court challenged the biological opinion, saying it “underestimated the risk and harms of oil spills to protected species” and its jeopardy analysis for two listed species, the Rice’s whale and the Gulf sturgeon. The next federal Gulf of Mexico oil and gas lease sale is scheduled for 2025.
• Employment by oil and gas extraction firms was relatively flat in February compared to a year ago, while average industry wages fell 2.4% year over year in January to $42.55 per hour, according to the latest US Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Employment by drillers is down significantly over the past decade as rig counts decline and companies rely more on technology to drive down production costs amid rising labor costs. Producer prices for oil and gas drilling services remained flat in December compared to a year ago, according to the BLS. In April, the price of oil in the US fell to its lowest level in more than three years amid growing fears of a recession in the US.