Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on October 14, 2025
2 min readLast updated: January 21, 2026
Add as preferred source on GoogleOil executives warn tariffs on steel by Trump are raising costs in energy production, affecting investments. Baker Hughes and TotalEnergies highlight financial impacts.
By Stephanie Kelly
LONDON (Reuters) -The executives of two oil companies warned this week that tariffs resulting from the U.S. administration's trade policies were driving up costs across the energy production chain and affecting investment decisions.
TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne told the Energy Intelligence Forum in London on Tuesday that tariffs on steel were pushing up costs for liquefied natural gas (LNG) projects.
In June, Trump signed an executive proclamation hiking tariffs on steel and aluminium imports to 50%.
Lorenzo Simonelli, chief executive of energy services company Baker Hughes, told the same conference on Monday that tariffs would add between $100 million and $200 million to the company's costs this year, though probably closer to the lower end of that range.
“It is an incremental pressure point, but it’s something that we have to manage through,” he said.
However, Darren Woods, chief executive of U.S. major ExxonMobil downplayed the impact of policies pursued by any single administration, saying the group's long-term investments were not affected by one political cycle.
Instead, he flagged Europe's environmental regulations as a factor driving away investment.
"The challenge in Europe is that they try to micromanage and instruct the industry on how to achieve (decarbonisation)," Woods told the conference on Monday. "Frankly, they don't have the expertise."
(Reporting by Stephanie Kelly in LondonEditing by Tomasz Janowski)
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that has been cooled to a liquid state for ease of storage and transport. It is primarily used for energy production.
An investment decision is a choice made by an individual or organization regarding the allocation of resources to various assets or projects with the expectation of generating returns.
Energy production refers to the process of generating energy from various sources, including fossil fuels, nuclear power, and renewable resources like wind and solar.
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