Los Angeles Basin has little untapped oil left: USGS
Only minimal amounts of untapped oil and gas resources remain in the historic Los Angeles fossil fuel production basin, according to the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).
New estimates released by USGS on Wednesday indicate that just 61 million barrels of oil are technically recoverable in this region — equivalent to just 0.68 percent of the mammoth quantities already extracted.
As a basis of comparison, since exploration began in the area in the 1880s, 9 billion barrels of oil have been produced or discovered in the basin. That total is about the same as the quantity of oil that the U.S. currently uses in 14 months, according to the agency.
'Almost 150 years since exploration began, the Los Angeles Basin has little remaining undiscovered oil,' Sarah Ryker, acting director of the USGS, said in a statement.
Regarding natural gas availability, the USGS assessments indicated that about 240 billion cubic feet of this resource remain available. Historic data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that about 504 billion cubic feet of onshore dry natural gas have been produced from the basin since the late 1970s.
The Los Angeles Basin includes the coastal plain and waters of Los Angeles: extending north to the Santa Monica Mountains, east to the Angeles National Forest and the foothills of the Sierra Nevada Mountains and east and south into much of Orange County.
The USGS assessments first began about 50 years ago, after an oil embargo against the U.S., which led the government to require the agency to assess the country's untapped resources with geologic data.
These evaluations, Ryker explained, usually 'focus on undiscovered resources – areas where science tells us there may be a resource that industry hasn't discovered yet.'
The USGS is continuing to identify new such resources both in the domestic arena and in global hotspots that could affect market conditions. Having such information available, the agency added, is critical to providing 'actionable insight to U.S. leaders, other federal agencies, industry and the public.'
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Politico
3 hours ago
- Politico
Trade deals can't stop China's rare earth edge
With help from Nahal Toosi and Daniel Lippman Subscribe here | Email Eric The Trump administration says a 'framework' agreement sealed by U.S. and Chinese trade negotiators in London on Tuesday will lift Beijing's crushing export restrictions on rare earth minerals essential to U.S. defense industry production lines. That vulnerability underscores the geostrategic power Beijing wields through its global dominance of the critical minerals' supply chain, from mining to processing. China's ability to deny the U.S. defense industry the materials it needs is a powerful negotiating tool, and impacts U.S. military preparedness against China's increasingly aggressive power projection in the Indo-Pacific. 'It's going to take determination over several years until we're in a better position to decouple from the Chinese on this issue,' said MICHAEL ALLEN, a former National Security Council senior director in the George W. Bush administration. 'This is where we're the most vulnerable — this is a chink in our armor.' This dynamic frames the new export agreement as a temporary reprieve rather than a long-term remedy to U.S. dependence on Chinese materials. China holds a near monopoly on the global supply of rare earths — metallic elements essential to both civilian and military applications. And since December, Beijing has imposed export restrictions on 11 such minerals in the deepening U.S.-China trade war. All of them are on the U.S. Geological Survey's list of 50 'critical minerals' essential to 'the U.S. economy and national security.' They include antimony, necessary to produce munitions; samarium, which goes into precision weaponry; and germanium, which is a key to the production of military night vision equipment. The scarcity of rare earths raises questions about whether the Pentagon could muster adequate resources to deter or prevail in potential future conflicts that would drain weapon system inventories that require rare earth inputs. 'Panic might be too strong a word, but deep concern is not,' said BRADLEY MARTIN, researcher at the RAND Corporation and an expert on defense industries' supply chains. 'It's not as if they'll run out of weapons because we're not using weapons and materials in a wartime setting, but they'll be running out of things and won't have a place to go in order to overcome the restrictions.' The Pentagon didn't respond to a request for comment about the impact of China's rare earth trade curbs on U.S. military preparedness. The trade deal — which neither Beijing nor the White House has released details of yet — awaits the approval of President DONALD TRUMP and China's leader XI JINPING. Trump says it will end industry worries about rare earth shortages. 'Any necessary rare earths will be supplied, up front, by China,' Trump said on Truth Social on Wednesday. But the sourcing of raw critical minerals is just half the battle. Even if the U.S. can mine or import the critical minerals it requires, it is almost wholly dependent on Chinese facilities to process those materials into usable form. The White House took action to boost critical mineral production 'to the maximum possible extent' with an executive order in February. But it will take years for the U.S. to wean itself from China's rare earth supplies, giving Beijing a potent weapon in future trade conflicts. Beijing has already signaled that its willingness to ease restrictions on rare earth sales to the U.S. is temporary. China's rare-earth export licenses for U.S. manufacturers have a six-month expiry date, the Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. 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Per Reuters' Diego Oré, Secretary of State MARCO RUBIO and his team have called on Mexican officials to prosecute Mexican politicians tied to cartels and extradite them to the United States. The State Department has threatened to levy additional tariffs on Mexico if the Mexican government doesn't comply with these wishes. The conversations between Washington and Mexico City, which Reuters reports have occurred at least three times since Trump took office, speak to the Trump administration's eagerness to aggressively address the threat posed by Mexican cartels. Complying with U.S. demands could put Mexican President CLAUDIA SHEINBAUM in a bind, Oré writes, as some of the politicians American officials are eyeing are also members of her political party. Read: How smuggled US fuel funds Mexico's cartels by The Financial Times' Christine Murray, Chris Campbell, Peter Andringa, Alison Killing and Sam Joiner AUKUS IN TROUBLE? The Defense Department confirmed that it's reviewing the AUKUS submarine pact, which could be a major blow for U.S. partnerships in the Indo-Pacific. The Pentagon told The Financial Times' Demetri Sevastopulo that it wanted to ensure that 'this initiative of the previous administration is aligned with the president's 'America First' agenda.' The review, which is expected to take 30 days, could derail one of the Biden administration's signature accomplishments towards building a 'latticework of alliances' for the U.S. to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. Senate Foreign Relations ranking member JEANNE SHAHEEN (D-N.H.) warned that the move would please China. 'Scrapping this partnership would further tarnish America's reputation and raise more questions among our closest defense partners about our reliability,' said Shaheen. 'And at a moment when we face mounting threats from [China] and Russia, we should be encouraging our partners to raise their defense spending and partnering with them on the latest technologies — not doing the opposite.' ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT: Israel's threats to bomb Iranian nuclear facilities may potentially help Trump broker a nuclear deal with Tehran. But as loyal readers reminded your hosts last night, that doesn't mean Israel wants a nuclear deal between Iran and the United States — or that Iran will take the bait. To be fair, their feedback isn't grasping at straws — Israel is on the record saying it is opposed to a nuclear deal between the U.S. and Iran. And some analysts believe Israel's threats may very well have the opposite effect on Iran's negotiations by undermining the president's credibility. 'Tehran is more likely to see Israel's threats as designed to sabotage diplomacy, which fuels their suspicions that Trump may not be serious about securing a deal,' wrote TRITA PARSI, an executive vice president at the non-interventionist Quincy Institute think tank in Washington. 'Such doubts are not conducive to eliciting more concessions from Iran.' Trump, for his part, is also acknowledging that the road to a nuclear deal is harder than expected. On the 'Pod Force One' podcast, he said that 'I'm getting more and more — less confident about it.' IT'S WEDNESDAY: Thanks for tuning in to NatSec Daily! This space is reserved for the top U.S. and foreign officials, the lawmakers, the lobbyists, the experts and the people like you who care about how the natsec sausage gets made. Aim your tips and comments at ebazail@ and follow Eric on X @ebazaileimil. While you're at it, follow the rest of POLITICO's global security team on X and Bluesky at: @dave_brown24, @HeidiVogt, @jessicameyers, @RosiePerper, @ @PhelimKine, @ak_mack, @felschwartz, @connorobrienNH, @paulmcleary, @reporterjoe, @JackDetsch, @samuelskove, @magmill95, @johnnysaks130 and @delizanickel Keystrokes PANAMA SAYS ADIOS, HUAWEI: Panama is dismantling Huawei telecommunications infrastructure with the help of the United States. The U.S. embassy in Panama announced today that the U.S. will spend $8 million to replace Huawei technology at 13 different sites across the Central American country with 'secure American technology.' The project will also add new communications towers in the country with the aim of ensuring Panamanian security forces 'control and manage their own telecommunications systems — strengthening shared security and the U.S.-Panama partnership.' It's the latest sign that Panama and the United States are on the path towards a much more stable relationship, as the country's government has looked to repair ties with Washington following a row early in Trump's presidency about the influence of China over the Panama Canal. The Complex CHINA SWIPES AT JAPAN'S MILITARY: Chinese state media has slammed Japan's tests this week of long-range missiles as a threat to regional stability. Those exercises — part of an annual live fire exercise — included the deployment of an 'improved surface-to-ship missile with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers,' per Japan's Jiji Press. An op-ed in state media outlet China Military Online argued that Japan's 'expedited development of long-range strike capabilities and pursuit of the self-professed 'enemy bases' strike capabilities' have breached' restrictions in Japan's constitution that limit the Japanese military's ability to possess offensive weapons. That commentary reflects Beijing's concerns that Japan is preparing its military for a potential future conflict with China amid rising tensions across the Taiwan Strait and in the South China Sea. Broadsides NO PATIENCE FROM RUBIO: The U.S. government is voicing its displeasure towards efforts from allies to express sympathy or concern for Palestinians. As Reuters' John Irish and Humeyra Pamuk scooped, the Trump administration is discouraging countries from participating in a U.N.-hosted conference next week in New York led by France and Saudi Arabia that will discuss a two-state solution to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. And that's not the only move the administration has taken in the last 24 hours. 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Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Trump's latest trade ‘deal' with China underscores key U.S. disadvantage
For the second time in two months, President Donald Trump on Wednesday touted a 'deal' with China. There's one problem: It's largely the same deal the two countries agreed to last month. And the initial readouts of the handshake agreement underscore just how far the Trump administration is from achieving its larger goals in the trade negotiations with Beijing. "The two sides have already met once to try to de-escalate and basically agree to stop punching each other in the face with extreme tariffs,' said Emily Kilcrease, a former deputy assistant U.S. Trade Representative from 2019 to 2021. 'And now they've come back together to say 'Yes, we've already agreed we should stop punching each other in the face. Let's actually stick to it this time.'" Speaking late Tuesday in front of the ornate London mansion where they'd just held two days of talks, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick and U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer told reporters the world's two largest economies had agreed to ratchet back actions both sides have taken since they announced an initial deal to cool tensions on May 12. The 'framework,' as officials from both countries described it, still needs to be approved by Trump and China's leader, Xi Jinping, and many elements remain outstanding. But the emerging details suggest the Trump administration is at a disadvantage. While the U.S. is promising additional concessions on the export of certain sensitive products to China and restarting Chinese student visas, Beijing has only recommitted to a pledge it made a month ago — lifting its blockade on shipments of critical minerals, which are essential components of everything from cars to computers to defense equipment. China controlled nearly 70 percent of the world's mine production of those minerals in 2024, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. And control of that spigot is proving to be the ultimate pressure point in any tit-for-tat trade war. 'This is another band aid,' said Derek Scissors, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and the chief economist of the China Beige Book, a report that publishes data on the Chinese economy. 'The Chinese can decide six months from now, 'we don't like what you said about the party,' or 'somebody was mean to Xi Jinping.' They can decide that and cut off rare earths again.' One person close to the White House and in touch with the delegation in London acknowledged the advances made in the latest round of meetings are small and tentative. 'The administration knows that any deal with China isn't worth the paper it's written on, but they can at least try to move the ball forward,' said the person, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the state of negotiations. 'This is not a trade deal. It's a framework and there's still a lot of details to be negotiated.' The Trump administration, however, hinted at how desperate it is to restart the flow of critical minerals from China by offering to partially remove one of its biggest sources of leverage against China: export controls on sensitive technologies. In his remarks to reporters Tuesday night, Lutnick said some of the export restrictions the U.S. has imposed on China in recent months on things like airplane parts and semiconductors and software would 'come off … in a balanced way, when they approve the [critical minerals'] licenses." Kilcrease called that a "very dangerous precedent." "There was always this view that the U.S. will impose export controls because it's a matter of national security, and because it's a matter of national security, we don't negotiate over it. Now you've given China an opening in every single future conversation to come back in and push the United States on export controls,' she said. 'And they're not just going to push on the kind of new export controls that were put in place for leverage. They're also going to push on the chip controls, the AI controls, all of the controls that they have hated for decades. We just opened the door to that.' Dating back to the first Trump administration, the U.S. has used export controls as aggressively, if not more, than tariffs to reshape the U.S. relationship with China. The Trump administration has taken steps to widen that effort since the start of his second term in office, targeting lower grade chips used in everyday electronic devices, beyond what's traditionally considered sensitive technology. Senior officials, particularly Lutnick, have vowed to strengthen controls and step up enforcement. Despite those pledges, the U.S. faces pressure from top business leaders to loosen controls and allow greater access to the Chinese market, a pressure that isn't matched in China's authoritarian government. Meanwhile, China holds a near monopoly on the global supply of rare earths — metallic elements essential to both civilian and military applications. And since December Beijing has imposed export restrictions on 11 such minerals as a second front in its deepening trade war with the U.S. and other Western countries. All of those minerals are on the U.S. Geological Survey's list of 50 'critical minerals' essential to 'the U.S. economy and national security.' They include antimony, necessary to produce munitions, samarium which goes into precision weaponry and germanium which is a key to the production of military night vision equipment. The U.S. has begun taking steps to develop its own rare earth mining and refining capabilities, starting under former President Joe Biden. But it remains decades behind Beijing in terms of domestic production and processing facilities, partly because of China's own strategic and largely state-backed investments and efforts to flood the global supply chain. China's dominance over that supply chain, and the U.S.'s relatively small stockpile, makes it possible to put pressure on the U.S. side in a way that the administration has struggled to replicate. 'China has always had this trump card, they know how to use it, they've done it in the past and there's no reason to suspect that they wouldn't play it going forward,' said Marc Busch who has advised both USTR and the Commerce Department on technical trade barriers and is now a professor of international business diplomacy at Georgetown University. It is unclear how long this current trade truce will hold. Beijing isn't completely toning down its rhetoric despite the temporary reprieve. China's Commerce Ministry described the export restrictions on rare earths as 'common international practice' due to their 'military and civilian purposes' in an X post Monday. And Chinese state news agency Xinhua called criticism of those curbs 'misleading hype' and defended them as a 'responsible measure to uphold international nonproliferation measures' in an X post Tuesday. The Chinese government, meanwhile, has not commented on the framework agreement reached in London, beyond vague statements by its delegation heads. China's lead international trade negotiator, Li Chenggang, told reporters, per Chinese state media that "the two sides have agreed in principle the framework for implementing consensus.' Chinese Vice Premier He Lifeng called the London meeting 'an important consultation' without elaborating on its details, Chinese state media reported Wednesday. Beijing took a more gloating tone in a Xinhua state news agency oped published Wednesday that portrayed the Trump administration as the loser in its trade spat with China. 'Washington was forced to spend billions in subsidies to offset farm losses, while companies struggled with rising costs of imported parts. The net effect has been supply chain chaos, business uncertainty and a lack of any clear strategic gain,' said the oped. Still, one Trump ally said that framework marks "a critical step and traditional sign of progress in trade negotiations." "Beyond Geneva, it opens up the ongoing negotiations. Progress on trade agreements is always incremental, complexity takes time," said the Trump ally, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the negotiations with China. "Both sides have political and economic vital interests to protect and advance." Trump, meanwhile, continues to push for a face-to-face meeting with Xi, which has been a diplomatic focus for much of his second term. After a call with Xi last week, Trump said that he had invited the Chinese Communist Party leader to the White House and that he had accepted an invitation to China and would visit 'at a certain point.' Any such meeting could hold more water than the formal negotiations, which have been led by Trump's triumvirate on trade: Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent, Greer and now Lutnick. 'Unless we get a Trump-Xi meeting, I don't see that we can write an agreement that will stand,' Scissors said. 'And it won't stand, because the Chinese will remain aggressive as they have been the entire time Xi Jinping has been in his party position, which is now 12 and a half years, and because the US will remain volatile While Donald Trump is president.'
Yahoo
a day ago
- Yahoo
Trump energy adviser slams renewables, says focus is on fossil fuels
President Donald Trump is a fan of fossil fuels who is determined to boost oil and gas and turn away from renewables — regardless of what some energy executives, fellow Republicans or even Elon Musk have to say on the matter, one of his top energy advisers said Tuesday. "What I would say is the president is in charge," said Jarrod Agen, a deputy assistant to the president and executive director of the White House's National Energy Dominance Council, at POLITICO's annual Energy Summit. "The last thing we want is in the short term to have any problems with the grid,' he added. Trump believes that fossil fuels got a 'bad deal' under former President Joe Biden, and the current administration will continue to double down on traditional energy, Agen said. That is despite economic uncertainty brought on during Trump's term that has roiled energy markets. The shaky outlook for oil was punctuated Tuesday by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which predicted that domestic crude production will fall next year after U.S. oil reached record output under Biden. Trump created the National Energy Dominance Council early in his second term, with goals of boosting energy production and reliability. Trump also campaigned on slashing energy costs, and he has taken credit for lower gasoline prices tied in part to an oil price slump associated with global economic worries. Supporters have credited the energy council for a wide array of moves in the last five months, from aggressively accelerating environmental permits to opening up more land for drilling. But the council's exact role in such actions remains unclear. The council is something of a black box, with no public meetings. The group's first director left weeks after joining the administration. And critics have questioned its usefulness. Agen said the council operates with a startup culture and has a 'tiger team' of about 10 staffers. Working out of the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, he said, they coordinate energy policy across the federal bureaucracy and home in on specific projects, meeting with companies to understand what hurdles they face. 'We can serve as a voice in the White House that can call over to these different departments and say, 'Hey, this is a priority, this is something the White House wants to get done, something the president wants to get done. What's the hold up over there?'' Agen said. Agen added that the council has experts in sectors ranging from oil and gas to pipelines, mining, critical minerals, electric grids and coal — but not solar. 'The president's priorities are around turning around fossil fuels,' Agen said, specifying that the administration wants to see new natural gas pipelines in Alaska and in the Northeast, as well as natural gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, which Trump renamed the Gulf of America via executive order earlier this year. Agen's comments Tuesday were a rare public look at the council's staff and inner workings, which have largely been out of public view. And they clashed with some industry voices and technology executives, including Musk — the Tesla CEO and a former Trump adviser — who have argued that that the U.S. should strive to be a leader in clean energy innovation. Agen joined Interior this year as a senior aide to Secretary Doug Burgum, who chairs the National Energy Dominance Council. Agen previously worked for former Vice President Mike Pence. He left a job at Lockheed Martin earlier this year, according to his LinkedIn profile. Energy 'dominance' has been a main theme of Trump's second term, and he has wielded an emphasis on oil and gas to jettison clean energy programs and abandon climate goals. The administration has ordered certain coal plants to remain open, pushed for drilling in untouched lands in northern Alaska and has cut permitting timelines for traditional energy projects from years down to days. Earlier this month, Burgum, Energy Secretary Chris Wright and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin visited Alaska — along with Agen — to throw their support behind a planned natural gas pipeline that would cross the entire state. One goal of that project is potential gas exports to Asia. Agen said his experience visiting the North Slope made him want more drilling in Alaska. 'These are massive, barren lands of snow and ice,' he said. 'Where would we want to have the oil and gas come from? It's there.' Agen repeatedly dinged renewable energy Tuesday, despite its rapid growth in recent years and the push from numerous American allies to decarbonize in the face of looming scientific evidence of the harms from climate change. Agen said renewables are supported by tax breaks and 'can't stand on their own feet.' 'The president is not focused on wind and solar,' he said. 'They haven't proven that they can get off the ground.' Agen said nuclear power is a long-term priority for the administration, while increasing American energy production will help with trade conflicts. 'The more we can produce energy here and export it, that will be a huge benefit to us in these trade negotiations,' he said.
