American Petroleum Institute President and CEO Mike Sommers issued the following statement regarding an April 3 meeting between President Trump, administration officials and executives representing U.S. natural gas and oil companies. Sommers attended the meeting with API member companies.
“We appreciated the opportunity to meet with President Trump today and thank him for his leadership during these difficult times. We had a substantive discussion on the challenges facing the U.S. natural gas and oil industry – from producers and shippers to pipeline operators and refiners – and energy’s essential role in accelerating our nation’s future economic recovery.
“We thanked the president for his support for the men and women of our industry working to ensure Americans have the energy they need to power their homes, TVs, and phones and underscored our commitment to helping the communities where we operate and all Americans on the front lines of this crisis. Our focus – as an industry of problem solvers – is on meeting America’s and the world’s energy needs, and we know they will only increase as our nation gets through this unprecedented time and emerges stronger.
“We are encouraged by the President’s strong diplomacy with Saudi Arabia and Russia, and we are optimistic further progress will be made in the days ahead. No one wins in a price war, and the Saudis and the Russians aren’t benefiting from their decisions. We also urged the administration to avoid U.S. policies that could do more harm than good for American producers.
“Although further challenges remain, the current energy market disruptions are driven by historic drops in demand, and as with other industries, the best way for ours to recover is to reinforce federal efforts to defeat this virus and enable demand stabilization.”
