Oil and Gas Watch

Brendan Gibbons

Trump officials mislead on fertilizer price relief in effort to ram through Louisiana ammonia plant

With farmers suffering from high global fertilizer prices due to the war in Iran, Trump Administration officials held a press conference May 19 unveiling their plan to speed up permitting for a Louisiana facility they said would help provide economic relief for the American agricultural community. The only problem? The majority of the ammonia manufactured from natural gas at the proposed Blue Point Complex near Donaldsonville will not be used to make fertilizer, but rather to ship to overseas customers and as a fuel for a power plant and a steel factory, according to corporate disclosures and announcements.

February 6, 2025

Trump’s order to boost drilling called ‘a massive corporate grab of Alaskan resources'

In an executive order released on Day 1 of his presidency, Donald Trump pledged to re-open even more Alaskan lands to oil and gas extraction than during his first term. Alaska has long been a battleground between conservation and resource development, and Trump’s executive action to open the Alaska wilderness to more drilling and industrial development makes clear that those fighting to preserve Alaska’s unique landscape, wildlife, and heritage face a monumental task over the next four years.

Brendan Gibbons

January 30, 2025

In rural Texas, residents speak out against pollution from Chevron Phillips’ plastic plant expansion

During a recent public hearing on the operating permit for an expanding petrochemical complex near this tiny town southwest of Houston, local residents exhorted state officials not to approve the permit for Chevron Phillips Chemical. Neighbors are concerned about the plant’s expansion because of its poor environmental track record. The State of Texas issued 93 environmental violations to the plant over the last six years, according to state records. A proposed permit would allow the company to continue operating while it replaces a furnace and produces more ethylene—a raw ingredient in plastics and other chemicals—increasing several types of air pollution, including sulfur dioxide and particulate matter.

January 23, 2025

Trump order to fast-track LNG exports called 'political theater'

In a flurry of Inauguration Day actions to promote his “drill, baby, drill” agenda, President Trump issued an executive order declaring a “national energy emergency.” He also directed the Department of Energy to restart reviews of permits for the export of liquefied natural gas (LNG) “as expeditiously as possible.” But experts say there is no factual basis for Trump’s “national energy emergency,” with the amount of oil and gas produced in the U.S. soaring to record-breaking volumes during the Biden Administration. And Presidential orders do not direct the actions of FERC, an independent federal agency that reviews LNG terminals.

January 16, 2025

Thousands of permits to drill on federal lands are not being used. So why 'expedite' more?

After campaigning on “Drill, Baby, Drill!” one of the first things that President-elect Trump and Republicans are expected to do when they take office next week is to accelerate the approval of permits to drill for oil and gas on federal land. But more drilling permits don’t appear to be needed. That’s because there are more than 6,000 approved permits for oil and gas companies to drill on federal lands that are available but sitting idle and not being used. Millions of acres of federal lands leased to oil and gas companies for drilling are also not being used.

Alexandra Shaykevich

January 9, 2025

Manufacturers of ammonia plan a boom in the U.S. Will it bust under Trump?

The United States is on the cusp of quadrupling its ammonia production capacity in the next five years—a move that could come with serious risks to human health and the environment. Ammonia, a chemical that is usually manufactured from natural gas, is used for synthetic fertilizers and explosives. Proponents now want to use it as a shipping fuel and to make hydrogen for clean energy. As of December 2024, 38 proposed ammonia projects across the U.S. could increase annual ammonia production capacity by over 60 million metric tons per year by 2030. That would result in a near quadrupling of the amount of ammonia production capacity in the U.S. today, from 21 million metric tons to 81 million metric tons.