Crude Oil, Refined Products, Gasoline

January 21, 2025

FACTBOX: Trump launches round of executive orders to boost energy output

Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...

US President Donald Trump issued a series of executive orders and declared a national energy emergency within hours of being sworn in Jan. 20, with the aim of ensuring reliable energy supplies and positioning the US as a leading producer and processor of non-fuel minerals.

"The energy and critical minerals ... identification, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity of the United States are all far too inadequate to meet our Nation's needs," Trump said in one order, declaring energy prices an "active threat to the American people."

Trump also said the US will impose 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada starting Feb. 1, and that the US is "probably" going to stop importing crude from Venezuela.

"If these measures are implemented, we think it will be tentatively BULLISH for oil prices because of higher freight costs amid anticipated oil trade reshuffling," S&P Global Commodity Insights analysts said. "However, since there might be minimal supply disruption, oil prices will likely normalize over time."

Below are some of Trump's key policy actions and their implications for commodities.

Crude and refined products

  • Trump promised to rescind any Biden-era policies that do not align with the new administration's policy for Alaska specifically rescinding a series of orders and environmental impact statements that temporarily halted lease activities and canceled previously scheduled lease sales.
  • Trump revoked Biden's Memorandum of March 13, 2023, which protected 16 million acres of offshore and onshore acreage, including permanently withdrawing 2.8 million acres of the Alaskan Beaufort Sea north of the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska as off-limits for future oil and gas leasing.
  • Trump revoked two orders issued by former US President Joe Biden Jan. 6, 2025, restricting oil and gas drilling across 625 million acres of US coastal waters. Biden issued the presidential memoranda to protect all waters off the east and west coasts of the US, as well as the eastern Gulf of Mexico and portions of the Northern Bering Sea in Alaska, from all future oil and gas leasing. This will likely be contested in court, as multiple policy analysts believe it may require congressional action.
  • The new Trump reversal also quashed Biden's revocation of the Keystone XL Permit. The original 1,870-mile Keystone project, which would boost deliveries of Canadian crude to the US, was started in 2010, but after years of back-and-forth, Biden eventually turned it down in 2021.
  • The US will place 25% tariffs on all imports from Mexico and Canada starting Feb. 1, and would "probably" stop importing crude from Venezuela, Trump said while signing executive orders Jan. 20. In 2024, crude inflows from Canada, Mexico, and Venezuela totaled 4.8 million b/d, accounting for 72% of US oil imports.
  • Canadian oil producers are expected to shoulder most of the tariff because they have limited ability to export elsewhere and will be competing at the margin with medium-heavy barrels on the Gulf Coast. US Midwest refiners, however, depend on Canadian heavy crude, as they cannot import heavy crudes by pipeline from the US Gulf Coast because the Capline crude pipeline was reversed to move crude south to Louisiana.
  • The Biden administration had decided to maintain company-specific licenses in Venezuela, allowing Chevron and others to operate in Venezuela's oil sector despite Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro's being sworn in on Jan. 10 into a presidency he is widely believed to have lost.
  • The Trump administration also instructed the US Environmental Protection Agency administrator, after consultation with the Department of Energy, to "consider issuing emergency fuel waivers to allow the year-round sale of E15 gasoline to meet any projected temporary shortfalls in the supply of gasoline across the Nation."
  • That move would represent a continuation of policy the Biden administration used that approved emergency waivers for the sale of gasoline blended with 15% ethanol in 2022, 2023 and 2024, repeatedly citing gasoline-price pressures resulting from Russia's invasion of Ukraine as the reason to make the higher blend.

Natural gas

  • Trump tasked the DOE with restarting reviews of LNG projects "as expeditiously as possible, consistent with applicable law," while a separate order called for prioritized permitting and approval processes for the Alaska LNG Project.
  • A White House official cited Alaska's geostrategic location, which includes its positioning for LNG exports.
  • Agencies were instructed to limit environmental considerations to those required by legislation and specifically identified the Interagency Working Group on the Social Cost of Greenhouse Gases for disbandment.
  • Asia's key LNG importers are looking for a boost in US LNG production in the coming years, following a turnaround in US LNG export policy with the immediate lifting of a nearly year-long pause on export permits.
  • According to Commodity Insights, the long-term LNG demand forecast for "other Asia"— comprising Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Myanmar, Pakistan, the Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Vietnam, and Australia — is set to rise from an estimated 154.35 million mt in 2025 to more than 400 million mt by 2050.
  • Commodity Insights analysts said the widely expected resumption of LNG export permitting is likely to speed up approvals for 54 million mt/year of proposed LNG export projects in the US and Mexico, where projects need the DOE approvals because they would use US gas.
  • One project that could benefit is the proposed Delfin LNG export terminal, offshore Louisiana, with one of the executive orders containing a provision aimed at expediting permitting by the lead agency over the project, the US Maritime Administration.
  • The leading US LNG trade group described the administration's order on trade as signaling that tariffs are likely on the horizon while providing an opportunity for industry participants to engage the administration about potential tariffs before they are implemented.

Metals

  • Trump's orders included provisions aimed at bolstering domestic metals mining production.
  • One section targeted cutting back rules that impact mining activities, advancing mining potential on public lands, and accelerating geologic mapping. The order also called for assessing whether minerals imported into the US were derived from forced labor practices.
  • While the Steel Manufacturers Association has backed Trump's proposed 25% tariffs on Mexico and Canada, North American aluminum producers have emphasized the need to maintain tariff exemptions on Canadian aluminum.
  • Aluminum is a key component for the automotive and construction sectors and raising the price of supplies from Canada could send shockwaves through those industries.

Climate change

  • Trump released an order dedicated to rescinding existing executive actions, many of which focused on climate change, including the Jan. 27, 2021, order that launched the government-wide approach to reducing "climate pollution in every sector of the economy."
  • The Executive Order Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad was among them. This order made the climate crisis a central focus of US foreign policy and national security planning. Specifically, the order said that the nation would work multilaterally toward sustainable climate policies and build resilience to climate change's impacts.
  • Another January 2021 order aimed to put the US on course to adopt economy-wide emission reduction targets as part of Biden's move to rejoin the Paris Agreement on climate change. As expected, Trump issued a separate executive order Jan. 20 directing the US ambassador to the United Nations to formally kick off the year-long process of withdrawing from the Paris Agreement.
  • In another move, Trump revoked a December 2021 executive order calling on the federal government to use its purchasing power to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, with 100% carbon-free electricity by 2030.
  • Another order temporarily withdraws leasing areas on the Outer Continental Shelf for offshore wind energy starting Jan. 21. The order also calls for temporary cessation of leasing and permitting for onshore wind projects on federal land and greater environmental scrutiny of onshore wind projects, including some already concluded decisions by the Department of Interior.
  • One order revoked a President Jimmy Carter-era executive action that directed the White House Council on Environmental Quality to issue National Environmental Policy Act rules. Instead, the CEQ is tasked with coordinating agency-level rewrites of NEPA implementing rules; the CEQ should put a premium on expediting approvals "over any other objectives, including those of activist groups," the order said.
  • Trump also revoked Biden's Aug. 5, 2021 executive order seeking to have zero-emission vehicles make up 50% of new vehicle sales by 2030. That order included a schedule for the "development of fuel efficiency and multi-pollutant emissions standards through at least model year 2030 for light-duty vehicles and for medium- and heavy-duty vehicles starting as early as the model year 2027," the White House said at the time.