At these levels, when can you start refilling our strategic petroleum reserve?

Oh, it'll, it'll start being refilled in the next few months.

Remember, the oil we released, none of it was sold.

It was all swapped with delivery dates and delivery amounts agreed in those contracts.

So that oil will start going in.

The oil problem is going to fade away.

The bigger problem is the refined products.

That's genius.

How much are you seeing the Middle East as the source of some of the increase that we've seen in diesel prices in the United States, up some 30% over the past couple of months? Is that really coming from the Middle East? Or as President Trump said yesterday, is that really due to Ukrainian attacks on Russian facilities?

So it's a combination of all of the above, and that is one of our focuses in the Middle East, is to get more refined products out of the region.

You'll see an upward trend on that.

We are getting some, and it's not trivial, but we want to see even more come out of the Middle East.

But yeah, obviously there's been a huge disruption in Russian diesel exports.

They were a meaningful exporter of diesel.

Today they're not exporting any.

At these levels, when can you start refilling our strategic petroleum reserve?

Well, can you give us some detail as to what exactly that effort entails? How much of this is simply a factor of things that are beyond you as Energy Secretary's control, like, for example, Ukraine going after Russian refineries? Are there limits to what you're able to do to address this?

Yeah, the Ukrainian attacks on Russian refinery, they're probably the single biggest problem with diesel.

Russia was a large exporter of diesel.

Now they're not exporting anything.

Russia was an exporter of gasoline, and now they're a meaningful importer of gasoline.

China has also crimped back on their refining capacity.

That's pushing upward pressure on global prices.

Given the hostilities that we have seen flare up once again in just the last several days in that region, the U.S. yesterday attacking five Iranian tankers, has that had a direct impact on what is able to get out of the Strait of Hormuz? Do you have an updated figure for us, the latest figure from yesterday or today?

Can you give us an answer with some clarity on that today?

Oh, you bet.

Look, this is one of those deals, which is what often is the case with business deals, that it's just a huge win for both sides.

I'm down in Venezuela.

The people in the streets of Venezuela are so thrilled to see America there, Americans there.

This is a country for 25 years with a communist dictatorship.

Now it had a free press.

Do you expect President Newsom or President Harris to send in Delta Force? So what about the fact that this is being negotiated under this president, but a future president may not want to enforce this in the way that President Trump would?

Can you give us an answer with some clarity on that today?

Oh, you bet.

Look, this is one of those deals, which is what often is the case with business deals, that it's just a huge win for both sides.

I'm down in Venezuela.

The people in the streets of Venezuela are so thrilled to see America there, Americans there.

This is a country for 25 years with a communist dictatorship.

Now it had a free press.

negotiated under this president but a future president may not want to enforce this in the way that president trump would

But where's the sign that they're going to have a nuclear agreement?

There may not be a nuclear agreement.

It may be simply destroying their capabilities to do it.

An agreement may await a next administration in Iran.

We simply don't know that.

But I think what the president was communicating there is how critically important this is.

If Iran has nuclear weapons, the Middle East, the world, is a wildly different place than it is today.

Will we see a change before the midterms? When will we see those gas prices go down?

But between not just the Iran war, but the Russia-Ukraine war and the U.S.'s own dwindling reserves, isn't it possible gas prices could go up even more?

Well, if you look at, I don't want to have an opinion on that, but if you look at the futures market right now, what can you buy gasoline for two months in advance from where we are today? It's down more than 30 cents a gallon from where it is today.

So we are hitting the end of the summer driving season.

The Trump administration has changed blending requirements for American refiners, which allows them to produce more gasoline, just as demand for gasoline is about to start heading down.

I should point out that New York, Connecticut, California, and several other Democrat-governed states have decided not to adopt those standards.

They apparently want to keep driving up prices on their residents.

But the Trump administration is doing everything we can to drive energy prices down, as we have since the day we arrived in office.

What is your message to Americans about when the price of diesel specifically, which affects the cost of just about everything, will come down?

Is, for example, an export ban off the table?

You want to keep as much energy flowing as possible.

The diesel situation has been challenging because Russian refineries have suffered significant damage.

Russia used to be a meaningful exporter of diesel.

Today, they don't export any diesel.

And in fact, they've become a meaningful importer of gasoline.

So its global refining capacity is why gasoline and diesel prices are high, even more than oil prices.

If that is the current assessment, should the American people prepare themselves that the new normal will be these, for example, strikes like we saw just two days ago on Iranian oil tankers? Are you shutting down diplomatic outreach?

Just to get a lay of the land, how quickly can you start production on those 17 fields? And more broadly speaking, how quickly will we see Venezuelan production output really ramp up?

Well, several of those fields, Tyler, are already in active development today.

NABEP produces around 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

They're the second largest private producer in Venezuela.

So there's scale already in several of those fields.

A number of them haven't seen any meaningful development yet.

Some of them were at Russian partnerships or Chinese partnerships or, frankly, criminal partnerships.

Is continued U.S. investment or participation in this oil agreement conditional on any progress towards those Democratic talks? I know that talks are currently

Just to get a lay of the land, how quickly can you start production on those 17 fields? And more broadly speaking, how quickly will we see Venezuelan production output really ramp up?

Well, several of those fields, Tyler, are already in active development today.

NABEP produces around 200,000 barrels of oil a day.

They're the second largest private producer in Venezuela.

So there's scale already in several of those fields.

A number of them haven't seen any meaningful development yet.

Some of them were at Russian partnerships or Chinese partnerships or, frankly, criminal partnerships.

Is continued US investment or participation in this oil agreement conditional on any progress towards those democratic talks? I know that talks are currently

Chris, can you unpack that a little bit? What are the biggest challenges that you see preventing finance leaders from turning AI experimentation into measurable business transformation? That's a great question,

Kevin.

And we asked that question this year because as we presented the findings from last year's survey in groups large and small, either audiences of CFOs or individual clients, almost exclusively to each of those interactions, the topic of how do I measure return on investment came up because the finance community was struggling with how to do that.

It's not as if the finance executives we surveyed are exactly thrilled with their ability to compute and track ROI for broader transformation initiatives at the 45% level.

It's just that they're only about 35% confident on AI, and that's because there's some common elements that make it harder for finance to compute return on investment and to track it with the broader transformation initiatives it's it's a little bit easier to get to the eye what's the investment but with ai you not only have third-party spend to track you have time to track you have opportunity costs but now we're seeing in in the world of tokenomics the cost of running ai collecting that data from around the organization, depending on who's paying for it and where the cost resides, just determining the I in ROI is a challenge for the CFO and finance leadership community.

Now, think about the notion of return.

And I should add CFOs and finance teams have been looking at ROI for technology investments, for example, whenever there's an ask that comes to the finance organization, they typically ask the technology organization, well, What are the KPIs going to be up front so that we know we're going to measure success objectively and not sort of back into a great outcome, whether it was great or not.

um how is this changing the cfo agenda and what steps should finance leaders be taking right now in response to this volatility covenants

Thank you very much, Ian, and good morning, everybody.

And it is so nice to be back here, not only in Northern Ireland, but back in the Crescent Church.

Uh, it's been here quite a few times over the years, and it's always a, a joy to come back and meet with old friends.

Uh, I wonder if, uh, the, uh, PowerPoint can come up, the, uh, first slide just there, while I'm getting myself ready here.

If you have a Bible, you might want to turn to Psalm 33, uh, there on the, uh, in the pew Bibles.

I bring you greetings before I start the, the message from our home church.

We're not really seeing it reflected in corporate credit at all.

Yeah.

Look, I think, you know, a higher rate environment, a more sustainable high rate is a double edged sword for us.

Right.

We've got to find this Goldilocks environment where a rate is high enough.

And as lenders, we get paid very handsomely for that.

But that rate environment can't kill growth.

Mm-hmm.

Did you, did you miss us?

Yes, I did.

I mean, I, I, I'm in...

I moved from mu- being just music industry to TV production and radio stations and other things like that, and we had a, you know, very large company at one point in time, and music wasn't in the entire part of it.

And I enjoyed being in the other areas that I was in.

Um, and then I enjoyed for a while not really being in anything, and then I started thinking, well, you know, what really defines my life? I mean, my life, is it defined by Heart Radio? Not really.

I mean, nobody listens to Heart Radio and thinks, "Ah, Chris Wright, good job, mate." Uh, is it defined by t- by TV shows? Yes, uh, we did create Midsomer Murders and it's still going, but people don't watch Midsomer Murders and think, "Oh, bloody hell, Chris Wright, good job, you know, mate.

Mm.

Secretary, we know the SPR is at the lowest level in four decades, more than that, and I wonder how much lower realistically it, it can be allowed to go, where the operational floor is, and what the plan is if we reach it.

Oh, we are a long way from the operational floor.

I've heard some people that don't understand, not you, but I've heard people who don't understand how the SPR works saying, "Oh, it can't go below X amount of barrels." That's just not true.

They seem to misunderstand that it's just oil in these caverns and otherwise it's air.

All of these caverns are full of a combination of water and oil, and they are always 100% full.

We just, just use the water to displace the oil out of these caverns.

But with the planned sales we have, which will run into this fall, we'll still have meaningful supply, over 200 million barrels of oil in our SPR at the end of those releases.

But is the same to be said for diesel, which also powers a lot of our economy?

How does it end? When does it end?

Well, the plan, we needed four to six weeks for military actions.

They went for five and a half weeks.

Uh, we did a pause to try to get an agreement with the Iranian people to allow oil to flow without them attacking it.

They've proven unwilling to do that, and we've pivoted.

Now what we're doing is assuring that-

that-That oil and gas and other products can flow through the Strait of Hormuz with or without Iranian cooperation, and we've continued to degrade their offensive military capabilities.

Up next, a candid conversation with Bill Maher about his dinner with Trump and who he thinks should win the midterms.

How does that factor into this global energy picture?

No, you're right, Morgan.

That, that's an additional reduction in refining capacity.

R- Russia was a meaningful exporter of diesel fuel.

You know, they export crude and they export refined products, mostly in the form of diesel.

Uh, that has, that has shrunk all the way down to zero.

So think of all the blows the world is absor- absorbing.

[upbeat music]

Are we going to meet that?

We are going to meet that.

We are going to meet that.

Think about what President Trump said 15 months ago.

The nuclear renaissance has been talked about for 20 years.

But the nuclear industry that came out with the bang, a super strong start, hadn't done a lot in three or four decades.

It was just sitting there.

What is the path to that? And what's a realistic timeline?

What is the status? Are we are we partially opened? Is there really when do we get back to the levels that we had before the war?

Well, 55 ships two days ago, as you said, 67 went through yesterday on an oil and oil products volumes about equal to where we were before the war.

But there's three channels through the straits.

There's the middle normal navigational channel that unfortunately the Iranians have mined.

So that needs to be demined.

Then there's a separate route up north by the Iranian islands that they've tried to force ships through.

And then there's a southern route that the United States military has been escorting ships through for several weeks.

What do you say? This is really a gift to the Iranians and they really haven't given up much of anything.

Is that not true?

Look, the, the president...

N- n- no, I, I, I don't...

Well, l- look, the president has been advised all along despite the media proclamations that there was enormous risk to energy flows to engage the Iran's, the Iranians on their nuclear program in a military fashion.

But he simply was unwilling to leave to his successor, uh, a, a nuclear-armed Iran.

That's just, there's just no greater risk to energy prices, to the economy of the world than a nuclear-armed Iran.

He knew he was gonna drive up energy prices in the short run.

What, what do you say to this is really a, a, a gift, uh, to the Iranians, and they really haven't given up much of anything?

is

admin leave basically, and State of Heart paid for everything.

And so the, the, The way it worked there at that time was one Marine would go and would fly down to Bangkok, the company headquarters in Bangkok.

They would fly there and then go to a week of R&R on the visa.

Phuket is where they send us for some visa.

Put us up in a great hotel.

So one Marine would go by himself.

keep people out and do all these sorts of things.

Yeah.

And of course, that, that's a different question, and maybe back to where we started.

You know, number one, of course, is just stop digging the hole or stop closing power plants pre- that have been closed prematurely that are there to, to supply reliable, affordable electricity.

We do have a nuclear restart that'll happen this summer.

The, uh, Palisades Nuclear Power Plant in southwestern Michigan was shut down just a few years ago for political reasons.

"Yeah, we're ending our nuclear." You know, that plant is, is been in a restart program.

It's been relicensed by the NRC.

How do we kind of flip that?

So what does that plan look like? Um, is that UN nuclear inspectors going in and grabbing the enriched uranium? Are those your, uh, employees in the Department of Energy going in? Is that the US military?

Uh, we don't know.

That's, that's what's still yet to be determined.

It could be any of those, but it definitely would involve people from the Department of Energy.

The nuclear expertise in the United States is within my department.

They are ready.

They've been monitoring what's happening in Iran.

We may go back to Project Freedom, but it would be Project Freedom plus others." So as of this morning, is the United States military going to begin clearing the strait?

Just to go back to the central question, though, do you anticipate gas prices will drop below $3 a gallon this year?

It, I can't make predictions about that.

I can say that when this, we start to get free flow of traffic through the Straits of Hormuz, energy prices will come down.

And by ending Iran's ability to get a nuclear weapon, they are the biggest threat in the world to the flow of global energy.

They've killed more American soldiers over the last two decades than any other power.

They're the giant force of destabilization.

They're the largest sponsor of terrorism around the planet.

Would you support suspending the federal gas tax to give families relief right now?

Secretary, how much are you trying to ameliorate some of the price considerations in traditional allies of the United States, as this does potentially drag on for a longer period of time? I mean, how much has cost a big part of some of these exports?

Yes, everyone understands, particularly over here in Central and Eastern Europe, people understand the existential threat from Iran.

Everybody wants to see that the United States successful in ending Iran's nuclear weapon ambitions.

Nobody likes, of course, high prices in the short term, but they understand increased American energy exports, increased energy addition policies, lean in to more energy production.

That's what President Trump is all about.

We've got to get away from those Western European policies of intentionally making hydrocarbons expensive and energy subtraction policies.

The future of Europe, the dynamic growth of Europe is going to be in these Central and Eastern European nations that lean into President Trump's American agenda of more energy, more economic growth, more opportunities for citizens.

Will it be something that all of our allies in Europe can get a handle of?