API President Outlines ‘State of American Energy’
The United States can use its resurgent oil and gas resources to reverse decades of dependence on foreign supplies, according to American Petroleum Institute (API) president and CEO Jack Gerard, who outlined the API’s advocacy and messaging priorities, issued a new report and launched a new advertising campaign during his 2014 “State of American Energy” speech on Jan. 7, which focused on the impact of future policy decisions on America’s energy revolution.
“To lead the energy policy discussion and educate the public on the game changing impact of the choices our nation faces when it comes to energy policy, API’s 2014 messaging and advocacy theme is America’s Energy, America’s Choice,” Gerard said. “It distills America’s energy policy discussion down to a basic choice: An American energy future of energy abundance, self-sufficiency and global leadership or energy scarcity, dependence and economic uncertainty.”
Gerard also outlined the broad economic, geopolitical, and security benefits of record-breaking domestic oil and natural gas production in the United States.
“We can erase what for decades has been America’s greatest economic vulnerability — our dependence on energy sources from other continents, particularly from less stable and less friendly nations — and fundamentally alter the geopolitical landscape for decades to come, all while providing a much needed boost to our economy. But only if we get our energy policy right,” Gerard said.
Gerard also unveiled the results of a new study by IHS, which estimates that capital spending in oil and gas midstream and downstream infrastructure has increased by 60 percent between 2010 and 2013, from $56.3 billion to $89.6 billion. This increase in capital spending has provided both an economic stimulus and further proof of how shale driven oil and gas production is reshaping the U.S. oil and gas infrastructure landscape, according to the report.
The IHS analysis also estimates that $85 billion to $90 billion of direct capital will be allocated toward oil and gas infrastructure in 2014. The IHS forecast of oil and gas infrastructure investment over the next 12 years (2014-2025) estimates a cumulative spending of $890 billion (in 2012 dollars) in the base case and $1.15 trillion in the high production case.
