U.S. Interior Department Partners with TotalEnergies to Invest $1B in Natural Gas Projects

Catch up on the top industries and stocks that were impacted, or were predicted to be impacted, by the comments, actions and policies of President Donald Trump with this daily recap compiled by The Fly.REDIRECTING CAPITAL:The U.S. Department of the Interior announced a landmark agreement with TotalEnergiesfor the company to redirect capital from offshore wind leases toward natural gas projects. TotalEnergies has committed to invest approximately $1B -the value of its renounced offshore wind leases-in oil and natural gas and LNG production in the United States. Following their new investment, the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar, up to the amount they paid in lease purchases for offshore wind. Additionally, in light of the national security concerns, TotalEnergies has pledged not to develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States, the department said. For its part, TotalEnergies will invest $928M, on the following projects in 2026: The development of Train 1 to 4 of Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas; The development of upstream conventional oil in Gulf of America and of shale gas production.Meanwhile, TotalEnergies confirmed it has signed settlement agreements with the United States Department of the Interior, or DOI, to relinquish its Carolina Long Bay lease and its New York Bight lease, both awarded in 2022, along with its partners. As a result, TotalEnergies will no longer develop offshore wind projects in the United States. Under the terms of the settlement, TotalEnergies will recover the lease fees paid and will invest an equal amount in the development of U.S. Gas & Power production and exports. TotalEnergies has also signed recently a letter of intent with Glenfarne, lead developer of the Alaska LNG project, for the long-term offtake of 2M tons per year of liquefied natural gas over 20 years, subject to the project's final investment decision.PAX SILICA FUND:The Trump administration plans to launch a voluntary international consortium aimed at investing more than $1T in energy, minerals, and semiconductors to secure critical supply chains under U.S. influence, The New York Times' Ana Swanson and Sheera Frenkel. The initiative, tied to the "Pax Silica" program, would include countries such as Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, and Sweden, with the United States contributing $250M and expanding the effort to address energy security concerns. Publicly traded energy companies include Exxon, Chevron, Shell, and BP, while critical minerals companies include Albermarle, SQM, BHP, and Freeport McMoRan. Companies involved in the development and mining of rare earth minerals include Nova Minerals, Ioneer, Lynas Rare Earths, MP Materials, Energy Fuels, NioCorpand VanEck Vectors Rare Earth/Strategic Metals ETF. Publicly traded companies in the semi space include AMD, Intel, Marvell, Microchip, Micron, Nvidia, Qualcommand Texas Instruments.ALASKA OIL OUTPUT:Jarrod Agen, the executive director of White House National Energy Dominance Council, has stated that the Trump administration has held talks with oil companies about increasing output in Alaska, including the National Petroleum Reserve, Bloomberg's Ari Natter reports. The report cites Agen indicating that the issue has come up during meetings of CERAWeek by S&P Global conference.