TPT November 2017

G LOBA L MARKE T P L AC E

› Aaron Aupperlee of the Tribune-Review (Pittsburgh) reported on 5 September that plant upgrades planned by US Steel for Western Pennsylvania and elsewhere are estimated at $1.2bn. The Edgar Thomson plant in Braddock already received a new cooling tower at a cost of around $2mn. A $1mn upgrade to the discharge table, rolls and bearings of a hot strip mill at the Irvin plant in West Mifflin is set for completion before the New Year. The two plants are part of US Steel’s Mon Valley Works. Steel production facilities in Gary, Indiana, and along Michigan’s Detroit River are also slated for upgrades. The improvements are intended to increase the company’s production capability from ten million tons to 11 million tons of steel annually and increase earnings to $325mn a year by 2020. US Steel announced the improvements project as its executives were urging President Donald Trump to clamp down on steel imports. Oi l and gas Some petroleum interests in the US are worried that that an overly sympathetic White House could hur t the industry “President Donald Trump’s aggressive drive to roll back environmental regulations is moving too fast even for some in the oil and gas industry.” Ben Lefebvre of Politico was noting an anomaly of Mr Trump’s efforts to undo former President Barack Obama’s environmental regulations, including restrictions on fracking- related pollution, pipeline permits and offshore drilling. Publicly, petroleum companies and their trade groups are cheering. But quietly, people in the industry are growing worried that deregulation could backfire on them. In interviews with a dozen executives, lobbyists, lawyers, and analysts, Mr Lefebvre was told that some large companies that have already spent money to comply with Obama- era regulations fear being undercut by competitors if the Trump administration reverses those rules. And an industry that prizes regulatory certainty is uneasy with Mr Trump’s efforts to reorganise the agencies responsible for overseeing offshore drilling. (“Oil and Gas Allies to Trump: Slow Down,” 25 August) Another source of industry unease, according to Mr Lefebvre, is the new president’s slowness to fill key positions across the government, which has delayed decisions on regulatory matters such as pipeline safety standards.

Oil and gas lobbyists and industry sources told Politico that the administration may also be overzealous in its quest to dismantle an Obama-era Interior Department rule tightening methane emission standards for oil and gas wells and pipelines on public lands. When Congress failed to repeal the rule earlier this year, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said he would try to rewrite it. But Mr Lefebvre pointed out that this could take years – leaving the industry unsure, in the meantime, of what requirements it will someday have to meet. › But the most potentially damaging policy push is the administration’s attempt to, in Mr Lefebvre’s words, “rip open the North American Free Trade Agreement for a redo.” The US, Mexican and Canadian energy markets have become strongly enmeshed over the past decade. In the view of Politico ’s industry sources, the current talks on NAFTA could unleash a host of issues that threaten relations in those markets. Wrote Mr Lefebvre, reporting what people in the industry said, “The last thing Andeavor, Valero, and other [American] refiners want to see happen is Trump ratcheting up trade tensions with tough talk that could sour the relationship.” Inter nat ional tr ade Complicating the talks on the future of NAFTA: chief critic Donald Trump’s asser tion that the pact shor t-changes the US The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), which came into force in 1994, created what is now the world’s biggest free-trade bloc. But the three-nation pact has come in for criticism in recent years. A first round of talks on its future, convened in Washington on 16 August, began inauspiciously with US President Donald Trump’s declaration that NAFTA had “fundamentally failed”. As trade negotiators from Canada, Mexico and the US resumed discussions on 1 September in Mexico City, an opening statement that the three participants looked for an “ambitious outcome” suggested a commitment to work together on resolving their differences. Prashant S Rao of the New York Times took the occasion to review the principal issues that would likely be addressed. Here, abridged and lightly edited, are highlights of his summary: (“NAFTA Negotiations: What’s at Stake in the Second Round,” 1 September)

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NOVEMBER 2017