WSJ Energy Reporting: Improvement Needed

From MasterResource

By Allen Brooks 

“The Wall Street Journal should hire reporters who understand the technical side of the energy industries and can cut through political agendas and narratives. A more competent editorial staff can identify and correct shortsighted reporting too.”

“Energy companies are accelerating searches for new oil-and-gas prospects outside the Middle East amid war and high prices,” reported the Wall Street Journal. While this surface take sounds reasonable, it is misleading and beneath what should be expected from an informed energy journalist.

Collin Eaton’s Big Oil Plows Billions into Far-Flung Drilling Sites to Escape Iran Turmoil” (April 19) needs correction. Major oil companies do not undertake major international exploration efforts without serious research and planning. That does not happen in days or weeks–even a few months.

“Far Flung” Places?

Writing about many oil company projects in “far flung” places, Eaton fails to note that they were preplanned and in highly prospective/active oil-producing locations. He cites ExxonMobil’s drilling push for Nigerian deepwater oil. But ExxonMobil is the second-largest oil producer in Nigeria, where a company subsidiary has been active since 1955–and in Africa’s most significant oil-producing country.

Chevron was noted for its efforts to expand its footprint in Venezuela, where it is the largest foreign operator. Chevron continued to operate for years while Venezuela’s Maduro government worked to seize the assets of other Western oil companies operating there. Venezuela also has the world’s largest proven oil reserves, over 300 billion barrels, making it an attractive place to work if you are sure of the laws and politics.

Eaton wrote that European oil companies BP and TotalEnergies are stepping up their expansion efforts. BP has bought a 60 percent interest in three offshore Namibia blocks. BP’s increased activity is in response to several discoveries (12) announced in 2025 by the joint venture BP has with Italy’s ENI. BP has already announced another two discoveries this year. Namibia is attracting significant industry activity from two other European oil companies, Shell and TotalEnergies.

Eaton also noted that TotalEnergies was stepping up its exploration activity in Turkey, a large country strategically located between the Middle East and Europe. Turkey imports 93 percent of its oil, so finding more oil and gas could significantly help its economy. The Turkish government is trying to become the hub of oil and gas transportation between Europe and the Middle East. It already hosts an oil pipeline bringing Iraqi oil to a Mediterranean port. It also has a gas pipeline running from Georgia through Greece to Italy, bringing natural gas from Turkmenistan. It is talking to Qatar and Saudi Arabia about building gas and oil pipelines extending through Syria and eventually on to Europe.

Some of Eaton’s information is attributed to Wood Mackenzie, an energy research and consulting firm, that estimates a group of international oil companies could “create $120 billion in value from their exploration ventures in coming years.” Wood Mackenzie says this group of oil companies spent, on average, $19 billion annually over 2021–2025 seeking new reserves. That is an impressive value-creation figure, but ExxonMobil’s current market capitalization alone is $620 billion.

Remember 2022?

So why, it can be asked of Collin Eaton, didn’t the same companies react the same way in 2022 when (in February) Russia invaded Ukraine? The European Union was suddenly confronted with the end of cheap Russian natural gas and oil supplies. Oil and gas prices soared, energy shortfalls were recorded, and countries began searching for alternative petroleum supplies. Did you read about major oil companies ramping up E&P budgets and launching search efforts in far-off places? Why not?

Maybe it was because euphoria erupted that the end of fossil fuels was that much closer. European governments had been the leaders in pushing the climate change and global warming narrative. Avoiding the climate catastrophe required a quick exit from carbon-emitting fossil fuels and a rapid transition to renewable energy sources.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) then was pushing a forecasting scenario that predicted a peak in oil and gas consumption by 2030, followed by a rapid decline. Oil and gas company reserves were expected to become “stranded assets,” casting doubt on the value of these companies and the prospects for future earnings and dividend growth. Wrong.

Climate warfare was unleashed, and Shell’s plans for reducing its carbon emissions were found inadequate by the highest Dutch court, which mandated a rapid reduction. In the U.S., climate activists were filing nuisance lawsuits against oil companies for “pollution” in state courts more friendly to the plaintiffs. Renewable energy was ascendant, and the days of fossil fuels were numbered, the narrative went.

In 2022, the oil industry was still recovering from the Saudi Arabia oil-price war of late 2014, which drove prices down for years and undercut the industry’s economics. Companies heavily indebted due to accelerated spending during the prior shale boom were forced into bankruptcy or shotgun consolidations. Major oil companies cut costs and reduced headcounts to weather the downturn.

The industry had barely found a sound footing when COVID arrived in 2020, shutting down global economic activity and briefly sending oil prices into negative territory. The recovery in 2021, followed by the oil price spike in 2022, had the industry in a better financial and profitability position. However, there was no oil boom underway, despite $100+ oil for months.

Last year, the IEA was suddenly forced to acknowledge that its oil-peak scenario was flawed. It reinstituted the Current Policies scenario, and predicted in its 2025 World Energy Outlook that oil demand would grow through 2050. More importantly, the IEA officials called for the industry to accelerate E&P spending to avoid a future catastrophe of insufficient supply and soaring prices. This reversal was needed, but it shocked the climate movement, which had considered the IEA an ally in its argument that renewable energy would soon replace oil and gas.

If Eaton was truly trying to explain the recent announcements of oil company exploration investments, he should have introduced this narrative. Historically, oil and gas companies have reported their E&P plans alongside year-end financial results and outlined their expectations for the current year and beyond.

Wider WSJ Problem

For a long-time reader of the WSJ (65 years), I am no longer surprised by the deterioration in the quality of their coverage of the energy industry. This condition has been a topic of discussion among industry colleagues for years, many of whom hoped for improvement.

While reading the WSJ article, I connected on LinkedIn with Nick Deilius, the recently retired CEO of CNX Resources, an Appalachian driller. He provided us with a report he prepared about the deterioration in the quality of energy reporting by the WSJ.

As he clipped and copied WSJ energy articles, his dismay grew. He finally compiled a study of 122 articles published between mid-August 2024 and December 2025 to document flawed assumptions, errors, misstatements, omissions of key points, and other problems.

Deilius’s Dirty Dozen

Nick Deiuliis created a list of tools the WSJ energy reporting staff used to err and misreport energy news. His Dirty Dozen tactics employed in energy reporting include:

1. Repeating the mantra of the ‘existential threat of climate change’, ‘increasing severity of weather due to climate change’, and the ‘high consensus level of climate science’ without providing tangible, measurable evidence in support.

2. Promoting the myth that wind, solar, batteries, and EVs are ‘clean’ and carry zero CO2 footprints. Only if one believes that these forms of energy or transport carry zero CO2 emissions footprints can one warrant that an economy and society could plausibly function under net-zero policies.

3. Warranting the most expensive, unreliable, and non-scalable forms of power (wind and solar) are the lowest cost, most reliable, and easily scalable.

4. Citing a quoted source and assigning it the respect of an expert, decisive study, or established authority on the matter despite lacking credibility or carrying an apparent conflict of interest.

5. Cherry-picking data sets and time periods to manufacture a desired conclusion or to ignore a reality that is counter to the desired conclusion.

6. Applying inconsistent logic or different standards within the same article or across energy articles.

7. Making obvious errors of omission.

8. Avoiding the opportunity to expose obvious problems or flaws.

9. Applying theatrical language and descriptors that trigger emotion and paint a desired picture.

10. Implying that companies and industries are ready and willing to do the right thing, but for being stopped by pro-fossil fuels or pro-capitalist interests or policies, despite the lack of substantive supporting evidence.

11. Cheerleading the favored beliefs and unfairly criticizing the disfavored views in headlines and stories.

12. Abusing simple statistical associations to imply causation.

The backgrounds of the 70 reporters who wrote the above 122 articles ranged from interns to seasoned veterans, many with degrees from elite universities, even advanced degrees. The group was multinational, adding to the scope of experience covering a global industry. However, none possessed degrees in the classic STEM (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) disciplines.

For Deiuliis, the absence of STEM degrees is a problem. He wrote:

The dearth of STEM education among 70 journalists reporting on energy for the WSJ creates a serious blind spot, particularly for topics such as energy and climate, which are complex, rapidly evolving, and steeped in STEM. The lack of STEM training raises legitimate questions about whether the energy reporting team understands the science and engineering underlying the reported issues.

Conclusion

Collin Eaton’s article failed to note the dramatically changed climate-activism environment and the reversed IEA forecast. He should know that major oil companies do not shift strategically, based on short-term price movements (exploration plans require significant research/vetting by executives and often the company’s board of directors). Every cited example of a new exploration initiative was where the company has been active and successful. Why wouldn’t an explorationist go back to where the likelihood of success is higher because of the record of past successes?

The lesson? The Wall Street Journal should hire reporters who can both understand the technical side of the industry and cut through political agendas and narratives. A more competent editorial staff can identify and correct shortsighted reporting too.

The ongoing come-uppance of the mainstream media needs to reach business reporting. In a new political climate, that time is now at the Wall Street Journal.