Donald Trump’s promise of a golden age for oil is fanciful

“We will drill, baby, drill!” So thundered Donald Trump in his speech on July 19th at the Republican National Convention, where he accepted his party’s nomination as its presidential candidate. Encouraged by rapturous applause, he warmed to the theme, vowing to boost domestic production of fossil fuels to “levels that nobody’s ever seen before”, making America so “energy dominant” that it “will supply the rest of the world”.

Mr Trump is assiduously courting oil bosses. In April he invited a group of them to Mar-a-Lago, his private club in Florida, and promised to scrap what they see as President Joe Biden’s onerous regulations on the industry if returned to the Oval Office. He asked only that they contribute $1bn to his bid for re-election, arguing that the figure would be a bargain compared with the windfall they would receive from lower taxes and looser rules.