Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump delivers the keynote address Thursday at a petroleum conference in North Dakota, the schedule shows.
Trump is the last man standing for the Republican Party’s bid to reclaim the White House after two terms of Democratic control under President Barack Obama. During his tenure, Obama has embraced an “all-of-the-above” energy policy that saw the United States march closer to its first-ever commercial offshore wind farms while at the same time moving to become a top world oil producer.
North Dakota is the No. 2 oil producer in the nation, behind Texas, and is home to the Bakken shale oil reserve area. More than 90 percent of the oil production in North Dakota comes from that region.
Trump delivers the keynote address Thursday at the Williston Basin Petroleum Conference. Trump offers no formal energy policy on his list of campaign priorities. In a March interview with the New York Times, the presumptive Republican nominee for president said he’d cut imports of oil from Saudi Arabia if the government of Riyadh was unwilling to help lead a ground effort against the Islamic State terror group.
Saudi Arabia is the No. 2 exporter of crude oil to the United States, behind Canada. With Canadian oil production down because of wildfires in Alberta, the four-week moving average for Saudi oil imports into the United States is up 10 percent. Energy analysts who spoke in the wake of the March interview said that, without Saudi oil, U.S. oil companies would either need to increase production by as much as 36 million barrels per month to make up the difference, or find another supplier.
North Dakota oil production, meanwhile, dropped about a full percentage point over the course of a month because of lingering market pressures. The number of rigs working in North Dakota shale broke a record low set in July 2005 earlier this week.
In early May, North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple called for a state budget that was about 90 percent of the 2015-17 appropriation. Tax revenues are falling short and the budget situation in the state is much different than it was two years ago when oil was selling for more than $100 per barrel, he said.
A consortium of leaders from the environmental community were critical of Trump’s energy policies, noting he’s consistently moved behind the oil and gas industry and ignored climate issues. On the campaign trail, they said, he’s already pledged to dismantle the Environmental Protection Agency.
“Donald Trump’s energy policies would hurt our country’s economy, health, safety, and security,” NextGen Climate President Tom Steyer said in a statement. “The Trump agenda is only going to make America great again for corporate polluters, which is why Americans need to come together to defeat him — and his Republican allies — in November.
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