Natural gas is the real story, says CME CEO
Chicago Mercantile Exchange Chairman and CEO Terry Duffy believes it’s possible for President Donald Trump to place sanctions on the country of Venezuela.
Currently, the U.S. has placed personal sanctions on Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, such as frozen assets.
Earlier today, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson demanded Venezuela to release arrested opposition leaders following what has been called a corrupt election.
Duffy believes that oil sanctions on the country of Venezuela could create some uncertainty and volatility in the markets, which they have not seen lately. However, he notes that recently the U.S. has become a bigger exporter of oil, suggesting that sanctions might not be detrimental to the U.S. economy.
“We were [producing] about five [million] barrels of oil a day, just a few years ago. Today we’re producing about 10 million barrels of oil a day. Our total consumption is about 18.5 million barrels of oil a day. We’re basically becoming more and more energy efficient. We’re actually exporting the product more today,” Duffy said.
He said that the real story to watch is the natural gas market, and that we will see more cars around the world running on natural gas in the years to come.
“You’ve got a 400-year supply of natural gas in the states, we’re going to be probably the biggest exporter of natural gas, do it in a liquefied process, and more and more vehicles around the world will be running on [natural] gas products, not so much on the crude refined process,” said Duffy.