A White House official, who requested anonymity because the session has not been publicly announced, said Trump will meet Tuesday with refiners and fuel distributors to discuss adding U.S. refining capacity and easing pump prices. Expected participants include Interior Secretary Doug Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, Jarrod Agen, and delegates from small, medium, and large refining and distribution companies. Rogers said Trump plans to cover ways to boost refining capacity, widen energy production along the supply chain, and deliver lower prices to consumers.
The administration is zeroing in on "concrete, near-term steps" to expand refining capacity, the official said, including as additional Venezuelan crude reaches U.S. plants. Tight global refining capacity has helped keep fuel costs elevated even as crude has softened. Earlier this month, Valero said the conflicts in Iran and Ukraine had taken roughly 5 million barrels per day of refining capacity offline. At the end of July, Exxon CEO Darren Woods told CNBC's Squawk Box that refinery bottlenecks created a "disconnect" between crude and retail gasoline prices - so extra oil alone may not immediately cheapen fuel. Gulf Coast processors have benefited from greater flows of Venezuelan crude, providing more barrels to run.
Affordability - especially at the pump - has become central ahead of the midterms. In a Reuters/Ipsos poll from early August, nearly half of Americans identified the cost of living as their top voting concern, and 70% said they disapproved of Trump's handling of it. On Friday, Trump unveiled a deal with Venezuela under which the U.S. would hold a controlling majority tied to in excess of 65 billion barrels of oil reserves, as part of a wider push to boost supply and cool gas prices even as the war in Iran upends global oil shipments. The White House official said Tuesday's meeting will also examine whether recent cost declines are reaching consumers and weigh additional actions the administration might pursue to bring down prices at the pump.
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Trump has previously pressed fuel sellers to lower prices. In July, he praised Freedom Fuel Network for offering gasoline at $3.47 per gallon and urged others to match it. Over the weekend, a fuel supplier alleged that some of the discounted fuel was delivered via a distributor who failed to pay about $4 million in invoices. A lawsuit filed earlier this month does not name Freedom Fuel as a defendant nor accuse the company of wrongdoing.
