Energy Secretary Rick Perry told reporters Wednesday that the U.S. faces a “good” dilemma in that the nation now produces more oil than it can feasibly get to market.
“We are now producing more energy resources than we are able to deliver,” Perry told a group of reporters at Energy Department headquarters. “It’s kind of an interesting dilemma. Good, I guess. If there is such a thing as a good dilemma.”
The next step, according to Perry, is to begin working on the pipelines and other infrastructure necessary to get the oil to market. “It’s essential that America build the infrastructure to deliver this record supply,” he said.
Perry held the rare roundtable with reporters to discuss his recent trip to Russia and the Baltic region that he just returned from.
Perry noted that while he was in Russia, the Energy Information Administration announced a preliminary finding that the U.S. “is now the largest crude oil producer in the world.”
Perry explained that it is his job to promote the president’s “energy dominance” agenda while abroad. One of the key parts of that agenda is increasing U.S. exports of oil, coal, natural gas, and advanced energy technologies.
Exports “are up across the board, whether it’s coal, oil, natural gas,” Perry said. “And I think we are just getting started.”
“We are now shipping [liquefied natural gas] to 30 countries on five continents,” he added. “So, there is a lot of good news to report, last week, on the trip.”
Perry went to Russia, Austria, and Romania.
Although he did express his “disappointment” over Russia’s continued hacking of the U.S. electric grid, Perry said they also discussed areas of cooperation on both nuclear and fossil energy.
“Our two nations aren’t only the world’s leading nuclear powers, they are also two of the biggest producers of energy,” Perry said. “As energy leaders, we share a number of interests.”
“We share an interest in supplying the world with rapidly growing energy needs,” he said. “We share an interest in ensuring the stability and sustainability of energy markets.”
The U.S. also shares an interest with Russia in developing cleaner ways to burn fossil fuels.
“We share an interest in producing fossil fuels in a cleaner way, because the fact of the matter is, by 2040, over three quarters of the energy produced is still going to be fossil fuel based,” Perry said.
“And much of that demand is going to be supplied by the United States and Russia,” he added.
At the same time, Perry said the administration remains opposed to the Russian Nord Stream II pipeline project to Germany. Perry said that when he met with Russian government officials, he told them that sanctions against the energy project are very much being considered. But that Russia did not want the situation to deteriorate where sanctions had to be applied, he added.
President Trump opposes Nord Stream II because the “project seeks to divide and control” and use energy as a “form of coercion,” Perry explained.
He said as long as Russia remains a good neighbor to the countries served by the pipeline, the U.S. will not seek sanctions. He said both countries “don’t want to reach that point.”
Perry noted that his focus at the Three Seas meeting in Romania last week was to make sure that other pipelines and sources of energy are being developed.
He said there is the Baltic Pipeline, which he called an alternative to Russia, along with new natural gas terminals popping up in places like Poland, which has been taking shipments of U.S. shale natural gas.
