Big Oil profits while Europe suffers

The world is at war and will be for years to come, so Texas must step up production of its most potent weapons against tyranny: crude oil and natural gas.

To preserve life on earth for future generations, we must reduce oil and gas consumption. But we must immediately deal with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s threat to global prosperity.

I studied Russia and its military for seven years as a U.S. Army Soviet intelligence analyst, and I’m disappointed to refresh those skills. Putin is a former KGB colonel committed to authoritarianism and a more significant threat to human rights than most Americans appreciate.

Sending troops to Ukraine would be the old-fashioned way of defeating a rising dictator threatening to subsume neighboring nations to create an empire. But this world war is what Russians call “gibridnaya yoyna,” or hybrid warfare, a conflict where the economic, media and covert realms are more critical than body-strewn battlefields.

Putin launched the world’s first hybrid war years ago when he began meddling in other nations’ politics. He laid the groundwork for his criminal invasion of Ukraine by slowwalking natural gas shipments to Europe beforehand.

Putin has escalated the economic battle by cutting off natural gas to Poland and Bulgaria. The European Union has retaliated by pledging to stop buying Russian oil, allowing exceptions only for the most vulnerable members.

The best tactic to stymie Putin’s aggression is to stop buying Russian oil and gas. The trick, though, will be to replace all of Russia’s exports so countries don’t suffer from their embargoes, and that means producing more in Texas.

U.S. oil firms say they are committed to providing affordable and plentiful energy. If true, they should step up production in the short-term while developing clean energy alternatives for the long. But CEOs at the largest companies are more interested in profiteering.

Exxon Mobil reported $5 billion in profits and is tripling the amount it will spend buying back shares. Chevron booked $6.3 billion and has promised $10 billion in buybacks this year. Total Energies collected $4.9 billion in profit and may double share repurchases this quarter.

BP booked $6.2 billion in profits even after taking $24 billion in losses from its Russian operations and will reward investors with an extra $2.5 billion. Shell posted adjusted earnings of $9.1 billion and planned to buy back $8 billion in shares.

Oil companies reported their highest earnings in years, but none announced significant plans to increase oil and gas production. By meeting investors’ demands for higher returns instead, Big Oil boosts its share price, keeps consumer prices high, and collects windfall profits.

I understand executives are worried about ramping up production only to see prices drop if the war ends or if OPEC breaks its alliance with Russia. But Putin’s hold on power is strong, his readiness to kill tens of thousands of people is proven, and his intention to keep fighting is clear.

Maj. Gen. Rustam Minnekayev, acting commander of Russia’s central military district, described a plan to cut Ukraine off from the Black Sea and create a land corridor to Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway region of Moldova. Putin has long financed rebels in Moldova and Georgia.

As long as he’s in power, Putin plans to keep invading former Soviet republics. Anyone who believes Putin’s promise to stop at Ukraine should remember former German Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s promise to only annex German-speaking Austria and the Sudetenland.

The United States and the European Union recognize the threat and have internationalized Russia’s war on Ukraine by sending equipment, supplies and cash to Kyiv. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin acknowledged that the West wants to dismantle Russia’s military.

“We want to see Russia weakened to the degree that it can’t do the kinds of things that it has done in invading Ukraine,” Austin said during a visit to Kyiv. “So it has already lost a lot of military capability. And a lot of its troops, quite frankly. And we want to see them not have the capability to very quickly reproduce that capability.”

Texas’s crude oil fueled British defenses during World War II before the U.S. joined the war and powered the Allied victory. Today, Texas crude and natural gas can help reduce Europe’s dependency on Russia.

The question is whether U.S. oil and gas companies will deliver or will they use the global energy crisis to reward investors and blackmail Biden into loosening environmental regulations.

Sadly, the world must frequently confront multiple crises simultaneously. Putin’s totalitarianism is the alligator closest to the boat; the climate crisis must come second.

The best tactic to stymie Vladimir

Putin’s aggression is to

stop buying Russian oil and gas. And that

means producing more

in Texas.

Patrick Pleul / Associated Press