Most oil and gas executives expect their firm’s capital spending to rise in 2025 compared with 2024, although larger firms are more likely to anticipate a decrease, according to the latest Dallas Fed Energy Survey, which was published January 2.
As we noted recently in Writing’s On The Wall, there’s been plenty of speculation about how the incoming Trump administration's oft-quoted goal to “drill baby drill” to lower energy costs would impact the strategies and spending of firms in the energy sector. Of the 132 respondents to the survey – 85 from E&P firms and 47 from oil and gas support services firms – 14% expected a significant increase in spending, with 43% anticipating a slight increase. Another 19% expected spending to remain close to 2024 levels, with 12% seeing a small decrease and 11% a sharp decrease.
More executives at large E&P firms (blue bars in chart below) expect their firm’s capital spending in 2025 to decrease compared to those anticipating an increase, with none anticipating spending to increase significantly. “Increase slightly” was the most selected response from executives of both small E&P firms (red bars) and service firms (green bars).
E&P firms were categorized as large if they produced 10 Mb/d or more in Q4 2024, while small E&P firms produced fewer than 10 Mb/d. Responses came from 71 small firms and 14 large firms. The survey was conducted December 11–19.
