NEWS

Oil and gas producers in the U.S. will not raise output significantly in the coming years despite calls from President-Elect Donald Trump to “drill, baby, drill,” said Exxon Mobil Corp.’s Upstream President Liam Mallon.

Trump is expected to open up federal lands for more oil and gas drilling, but much of the land in the country’s largest oil and gas producing state, Texas, is private. Still, there’s plentiful federal land in neighboring New Mexico which includes the oil- and gas-rich Permian Basin.

“If those rules were substantially changed, you would be able to drill more, assuming you have the quality and met your economic threshold,” Mallon said. “But I don’t think we’re going to see anybody in the drill, baby, drill mode. I really don’t.”

Exxon’s European rival TotalEnergies SE is also skeptical of Trump’s vow to open US taps. 

“Maybe he has a magic recipe to push them to drill like mad,” TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at the conference. He cited US producers’ commitment to return cash to shareholders and said “it’s not only decisions by politicians” that drive American output.

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