US energy secretary Chris Wright has said the US shale sector can deliver President Donald Trump’s pledge to “drill, baby, drill” and boost oil production even if prices hit $50 a barrel, a level most analysts say would curtail drilling activity.
The former chief executive of fracking group Liberty Energy told the Financial Times that the US sector could “absolutely” deliver both lower prices and higher production by “innovating” and driving “efficiency gains”.
But he predicted a period of industry disruption ahead, similar to that experienced by the shale sector during a bruising price war between Opec producers and the shale industry in 2014.
“There were a lot of bankruptcies. There was a lot of disruption, but the end result was far lower costs to produce a barrel of oil,” he said.
“We are going to see those same kind of market dynamics now. New supply is going to drive prices down. Companies are going to innovate, drive their prices down and consumers and suppliers will bounce back and forth.”
Wright, who has been criticised by green groups as Trump’s fracker-in-chief, said he was “pro-consumer” rather than “pro-business” and supported the president’s efforts to drive down energy prices.
His comments follow a steep decline in oil prices, with Brent crude falling to less than $70 last week for only the third time since before Russia’s 2022 full invasion of Ukraine. The unexpected decision by Opec+ to increase production, just as fears grow over the health of the US economy due to Trump’s tariff policies, have raised industry concerns about a possible oil glut.
Oil markets were jolted further on Tuesday when Peter Navarro, a trade adviser to Trump, suggested on Fox News that if oil fell to $50 a barrel it would help tame inflation. Trump has not given a specific dollar figure on where he wants oil prices to land, but during his campaign he repeatedly said he would slash energy costs in half within 12 months.
Wright’s comments will unnerve US oil executives, who are gathering at CERAWeek in Houston on Monday for the start of the largest oil and gas conference in the US. The industry is concerned that lower oil prices will dent profits and force it to curtail drilling activity at a time when Trump is demanding increased production.
Andrew Gillick, a managing director at energy research group Enverus, said he was not sure the Trump administration fully appreciated what $50 a barrel oil would do to the US energy industry.
“Operators had most likely planned for prices to be over $70 this year, so at $50, rigs would likely drop and activity slow. And when the rigs drop in the Permian you lose the associated gas that the LNG industry is counting on at the end of the year,” he said.
Daniel Yergin, a Pulitzer Prize-winning energy historian and author of The New Map said that “at $50 a barrel the economics of shale don’t work”.
The average break-even price for shale in 2010 was $77 a barrel of West Texas Intermediate, the US market, compared with $45 a barrel in 2025, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights data.
Wright will deliver a keynote speech at CERAWeek on Monday. He is expected to get a warm reception from oil and gas executives, who have welcomed the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations and pivot away from renewables.
Wright said he hoped the goal in the Paris Agreement for the world to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050 was now dead. He said diverting investment away from fossil fuels had increased energy prices and caused energy poverty in developing countries.
“Believing that we will have a re-transformed energy system in 2050 is pure fantasy. The problem is its been destructive fantasy,” he said.
Wright said Germany and the UK’s pursuit of green policies made their electricity systems expensive and unreliable, which had resulted in certain industries relocating to Asia and the US.
“Our priorities are focused on humans, lives, job opportunities. We’re not focused on climate,” he said.
In response to Wright’s comments, the Environmental Defense Fund said a lot had changed in the world of politics in recent months, but the science of climate change had not.
“Wright appears to be in the habit of talking about the benefits of fossil fuels but without talking about the considerable costs or what we can do to address these costs,” said Mark Brownstein, senior vice-president of energy at EDF.
“Greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere are contributing to natural disasters in the world, which are imposing huge and growing costs on economies and human misery.”