WHAT’S HAPPENING TODAY: Good afternoon and happy Friday, readers! All eyes remain on the global selloff of oil today, with prices hitting their lowest levels in three years.
In today’s edition of Daily on Energy, we take a closer look at Maydeen’s sit-down with Lithuania’s energy minister this week, as the country has expressed interest in boosting liquefied natural gas imports from the U.S. to further reduce reliance on Russian energy.
Plus, keep reading for details on the several NOAA websites poised to shut down at midnight as a result of the Trump administration’s cost cutting efforts.
Welcome to Daily on Energy, written by Washington Examiner energy and environment writers Callie Patteson (@CalliePatteson) and Maydeen Merino (@MaydeenMerino). Email cpatteson@washingtonexaminer dot com or mmerino@washingtonexaminer dot com for tips, suggestions, calendar items, and anything else. If a friend sent this to you and you’d like to sign up, click here. If signing up doesn’t work, shoot us an email, and we’ll add you to our list.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK: Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt spoke at the 2025 SAFE Summit about governors across the country wanting bipartisan permitting reform.
“There is a bipartisan move right now. We’re all talking about permanent reform,” said Stitt. “Whether you’re the governor of Pennsylvania, the governor of Oklahoma or the governor of Connecticut, you want to clean, affordable power for your citizens.”
“We know as governors that we’re going to have to build projects quickly. It’s going to take, it’s going to take the US right now about six to seven years longer than China, than it does Europe. We got to fix that,” he said.
LITHUANIA’S ENERGY MINISTER VISITS DC: Lithuania’s Minister of Energy, Žygimantas Vaičiūnas traveled to the U.S. earlier this week to meet with Department of Energy Chris Wright, representatives of the State Department, and lawmakers in the energy space.
Maydeen sat down with Vaičiūnas to speak about his trip to Washington, D.C. Vaičiūnas said one of the topics he focused on was how to increase American LNG imports to the region and how to minimize Europeans’ reliance on Russian energy.
Since the beginning of the war in Ukraine, Lithuania has banned the use of all Russian gas imports, including LNG. The U.S. and Norway are Lithuania’s top suppliers of LNG. But many European countries continue to import LNG from Russia.
Vaičiūnas said they are trying to persuade the European Commission to adopt the roadmap on how the EU member states can minimize the reliance on Russian LNG. The EU Commission was slated to announce a plan last month on how to phase out the region’s dependence on Russian energy but the plan was delayed for a second time.
“We are looking forward to the European Commission presenting the roadmap in the next coming weeks; how to minimize and phase out this dependence,” Vaičiūnas said. “In Europe we have the strategic goal to diversify our energy supply as well as to increase our reliance on the United States LNG.”
Vaičiūnas noted that, since 2017, the U.S. has delivered more than 80 cargos of LNG. He added “this is one area in which we would like to enhance the import from the United States.”
The minister also spoke to U.S. counterparts about developing SMRs, or small module reactors. The U.S. and Lithuania last year signed an intergovernmental agreement to cooperate on developing Lithuania’s civil nuclear power program. Vaičiūnas said that Wright confirmed that the U.S. is looking to continue the cooperation.
“Our vision is that we are prepared. We see the need for such technologies as a long term solution, as a medium term solution,” Vaičiūnas said. “We have to prepare the grounds for these projects to be able to be installed in the future.”
CHINA IMPOSES EXPORT CONTROLS ON RARE EARTH: China has placed export controls on rare earth elements in response to President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, Reuters reports.
Earlier this week, Trump announced an additional 34% tariff on all imports from China on top of the already imposed 20% tariffs. As part of the response to Trump’s additional tariffs, China’s Ministry of Commerce placed seven categories of medium and heavy rare earths, such as dysprosium, lutetium, and scandium, on the export control lists. The list applies to exports to all countries, not only the U.S.
As of last year, China produced 60% of the world’s rare earths and processed about 90% of them. Rare earths can be used in the renewable energy sector for electric vehicles or wind turbines. About 72% of rare earth imports to the U.S. came from China between 2019 and 2022.
China has also imposed an additional 34% tariffs on U.S. goods.
OIL REACTS: Dinged by China’s retaliatory tariffs on U.S. products, the price of oil in the global market hit its lowest levels in the last three years.
Just after 11 a.m. EST, both international and domestic benchmark oil prices had dropped by around 8%, inching closer to $60 a barrel. Brent Crude had fallen by 7.93% to $64.58 per barrel, and West Texas Intermediate had also dropped by 8.71% to $61.11 a barrel.
By around 2:30 p.m., prices steadied, with Brent Crude trading at $65.57 a barrel (a 6.51% drop) and West Texas Intermediate priced at $61.96 a barrel (down 7.45%)
Analysts have indicated that the escalating conflict between the U.S. and foreign nations over tariffs is raising the prospects of a global trade war, which will curb economic growth and demand for energy, putting downward pressure on prices.
Friday’s selloff was also stoked by OPEC+’s decision to speed up its planned increase in oil output by hiking production by roughly three times the expected amount in May. For months, market analysts have warned that these production hikes, along with increases in U.S. oil production, could drop prices to as low as $50 a barrel. Some projections have said prices will need to sit in the mid-$60s to see profitability and successful increased drilling.
However, Hunter Kornfeind, a Senior Macro Energy Analyst with Rapidan Energy Group, told Callie that OPEC+’s surprise output acceleration sends a key signal that the bloc is confident “global market fundamentals are not as soft as parts of the market perceive.”
While some have suggested the timing of the OPEC+ decision indicates a short-lived selloff, Kornfeind indicated prices will continue to slide unless the bloc signals and pulls back on production or macroeconomic sentiment improves after having taken a toll driven by Trump’s tariffs. “Directional risk for prices continues to lean towards the downside,” he said.
TRUMP ADMINISTRATION TO HOLD GULF OIL AND GAS LEASE SALE: The Department of Interior announced its intention today to hold an oil and gas lease sale in the Gulf of Mexico later this year, further delivering on the president’s agenda to “drill, baby, drill.”
The details: Interior Secretary Doug Burgum has directed the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to hold an oil and gas lease sale in 2025 in the Gulf, which Trump has renamed the Gulf of America. An anticipated lease sale date has not yet been released, but BOEM anticipated publishing the proposed notice of the auction in June.
In a statement released Friday, Burgum insisted that unleashing American energy resources through actions like oil and gas lease sales will help lower prices for consumers at the pump and in the grocery store.
Uncertain market: As oil prices dipped into the low $60s this morning, it remains unclear how interested potential developers will be in offering bids, increasing supply and further suppressing prices. But industry leaders remained optimistic about the administration’s decision.
Erik Milito, president of the National Oceanic Industries Association, said in a statement that the sale would bring a sense of “predictability and normalcy” to the offshore energy sector in the region.
“By moving forward with new leasing, the administration is hanging an ‘open for business’ sign in the Gulf of America—a move that will be a boon for our nation,” Milito said. “NOIA and our members look forward to working with American policymakers to sustain the Gulf’s role as a global leader in responsible energy production.”
BP CHAIRMAN TO STEP DOWN AMID OIL MAJOR’S RESET: British oil giant BP’s chairman Helge Lund is stepping down from his role as the company continues to reset its priorities in favor of the fossil fuel industry.
The details: BP announced this morning that Lund would be stepping down from his position as chairman of the company’s board of directors and that it was immediately starting the process to select his successor. He is expected to fully step down sometime in 2026.
Lund is leaving a mixed legacy as he had led the charge for the British oil major to turn its attention away from oil and gas to renewable energy solutions. He swiftly changed course earlier this year amid pressure from investors, slashing its renewable generation goals in order to boost earnings. In February, CEO Murray Auchincloss described the shift in focus as a “fundamental reset” for the company.
Lund’s impending departure has come as no surprise. One long-time shareholder in the company told the Financial Times that investors, primarily Elliot Management, had been pressuring BP to further abandon its goals to become a green company.
“They weren’t keen on Lund, that is true, but Lund’s time was up, he’d been there for seven years,” the shareholder told the outlet, saying his departure was “inevitable.”
NOAA WEBSITES SET TO SHUT DOWN: A number of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s websites are set to shut down at midnight as a result of cloud service contracts being terminated, Axios reports.
Several of NOAA’s websites connected to its research division, which provides a range of data for the public, are slated to go offline, sources told Axios. The Commerce Department is mandating that NOAA and other departments cut IT budgets by 50%, which has resulted in cloud service contracts being canceled.
Axios said that the National Severe Storms Laboratory (NSSL), the Climate Program Office, the home website of NOAA research, and the Earth Prediction Innovation Center are websites that could go offline.
However, sources told Axios that the contracts could be extended at the last minute. The website shutdown comes after the agency has lost nearly 800 probationary employees and could see future employee cuts.
FUNDING FOR BATTERY STORAGE AND CARBON CAPTURE PROJECTS UNDER THREAT: Billions of dollars worth of funding for carbon-emission cutting technologies are at risk of being cut by the Department of Energy, according to a list reviewed this week by Reuters.
The details: The department, headed by Energy Secretary Chris Wright, is specifically considering cutting funding for projects supplied by the agency’s Office of Clean Energy Demonstrations. This includes roughly $309 million earmarked last year for four carbon capture pilot projects as well as $890 million for three carbon capture, transport and storage technology projects located in California, Texas, and North Dakota.
More than two dozen projects funded by the clean energy office are at risk of losing funding, according to the list. This also includes six out of nine battery storage projects that were awarded roughly $350 million. These projects were intended to accelerate the connection of renewable power to the grid, by helping store the energy generated by wind and solar for longer.
If the funding is pulled, it could completely upend projects that have already begun the construction and testing processes.
Key quote: “All of our members are making the case that these are critically important projects so to pull back at this moment in time is catastrophic,” Jessie Stolark, executive director of the Carbon Capture Coalition trade group, told Reuters.
ICYMI – STRATEGIC PETROLEUM RESERVE UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT: Yesterday, the Department of Energy unveiled a new contract for managing the Strategic Petroleum Reserve for the next five years.
The details: DOE awarded the $1.4 billion contract to Strategic Storage Partners, LLC, to manage and operate SPR’s four sites in Louisiana and Texas starting June 15. The company, which is a division of Louisiana-based Aptim Corp., will have the opportunity to extend the contract for another five years.
“This announcement underscores President Trump’s commitment to advancing initiatives that support American jobs, strengthen domestic supply chains, and reinforce the United States’ position as a global energy leader,” DOE said in a statement.
SPR is currently managed by Fluor Federal Petroleum Operations, which has held a contract with the federal government since 2013. In 2018, the company extended its contract through March 2024. Under the Biden administration last year, DOE began the process to issue a new contract with a new management company.
RUNDOWN
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