Chris Wright, founder and CEO of fracking services company Liberty Energy, is a top pick among shale industry executives to lead the U.S. Department of Energy in the coming Trump Administration.
Wright, who advocates for “better human lives by expanding access to abundant, affordable, and reliable energy,” does not have political experience, but is being endorsed by his peer executives to be the next U.S. Secretary of Energy.
“Chris is an excellent choice for Secretary of Energy,” Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, told Bloomberg.
Pyle led Donald Trump’s Energy Department’s transition team in 2016.
Moreover, Harold Hamm, the shale tycoon and the founder of Continental Resources, is also supporting Wright to be energy secretary.
Wright is Hamm’s top choice for the role in the new Trump Administration, Hamm told Hart Energy in an exclusive interview this week.
Colorado-based Chris Wright is the founder, CEO, and chairman of the board of Liberty Energy. He says he is a self-described tech nerd turned entrepreneur and a dedicated humanitarian on a mission to better human lives by expanding access to abundant, affordable, and reliable energy.
Wright completed an undergraduate degree in Mechanical Engineering at MIT and graduate work in Electrical Engineering at UC Berkeley and MIT.
In 1992, he founded Pinnacle Technologies, whose innovations helped launch commercial shale gas production and created an industry in hydraulic fracture mapping.
Wright was also chairman of Stroud Energy, an early shale gas producer, before selling to shale pioneer Range Resources in 2006.
Other names circulating as the next energy secretary include Trump’s second Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette and the Governor of North Dakota, Doug Burgum, according to Reuters.
At the end of October, Brouillette stepped down as president and CEO of Edison Electric Institute (EEI), the association that represents all U.S. investor-owned electric companies, saying he was leaving the role “so that I can spend my time engaging directly with world business and policy leaders” on the challenges facing the global energy landscape.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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