Devon Energy boss, Larry Nichols: spoke to reporters
US oil chiefs silent in low-key meet
The US's leading oil company executives kept mostly silent during a uncharacteristically unpromoted annual meeting of their top industry association, which this year was at a gated resort east of Austin.
The one executive out of 120 energy company officials who spoke to reporters during the American Petroleum Institute meeting maintained a refrain started this summer that Obama administration proposals to limit climate change would cost American jobs during the worst recession since the Great Depression.
"Demand (for oil and natural gas) will be influenced by the administration adopting job-friendly policies," said American Petroleum Institute Chairman Larry Nichols, who is also chief executive of independent driller Devon Energy.
API and other oil industry lobbyists contend administration and congressional proposals to reduce pollution would drive up costs for producers along with consumers, reduce demand for oil and natural gas as well as costing the country thousands of jobs as it attempts to recover from the economic downturn.
Among those offering no comment were ExxonMobil chairman Rex Tillerson, Chevron’s incoming chairman John Watson and ConocoPhillips' chief operating officer John Carrig.
At one point, Tillerson walked behind a screen of bodyguards to keep question-shouting reporters at bay.
Lower-level company officials told reporters that the individual companies feared drawing the ire of Democrats, who control the executive branch and Congress, by speaking out on issues from environmental policy to refinery safety.
"You just don't want to get them stirred up," said one company official, who asked not to identified, about the Democrats.
API President Jack Gerard pointed to proposals from congressional Democrats as revealing their view of the energy producers.
"There are some with a strong ideological bent who don't appreciate the oil and gas industry," Gerard said in a news conference.
API was one of the supporters of the Energy Citizen campaign this summer that drew 12,000 Obama administration opponents to rallies across the country, he said. The rallies were meant to catch the attention of Congress members while they were home meeting constituents during a summer recess.
A rally in Houston, at the heart of the US oil patch, drew a quarter of the national total, Gerard said, reported Reuters.