US Secures $57 Billion in Energy Deals With Indo-Pacific Allies, Burgum Says

U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said on March 15 that allied nations in the Indo-Pacific have reached energy deals with U.S. companies totalling $57 billion.

Burgum told Fox News that more than 22 energy deals were signed during the inaugural Indo-Pacific Energy Security Ministerial and Business Forum in Tokyo, bringing the total value of agreements to $57 billion.

He did not name the countries involved. Before the Fox News interview, the U.S. Embassy in Japan said in a post on X that 18 countries and 180 companies had joined the deals, which were initially worth $56 billion.

Burgum said the total value was later revised to $57 billion after one more agreement was reached at the end of the conference. New Zealand, Japan, and Australia are among the countries that took part in the conference, he said.

“We had over 630 attendees at this conference, the first-ever Indo-Pacific energy security conference led by the United States,” Burgum said.

“This conference was planned about months ago, completely independent of anything going on in the Middle East because this is [what] President [Donald] Trump’s energy dominance policy is about, the fact that we need to sell energy to our friends and allies so they don’t have to buy it from adversaries, so they don’t have to be dependent on sources of energy that can be controlled or constrained by a terrorist regime.”

Oil prices have risen sharply as the war in Iran disrupts shipping through the Strait of Hormuz, a key chokepoint for global oil and gas shipments.

Tensions escalated after the United States and Israel began military operations against Iran at the end of February, and Tehran retaliated with a series of strikes on Israel and U.S. bases across Gulf nations.

The price of Brent, the international benchmark for crude prices, jumped to $106.50 per barrel on March 15.

To ease surging oil prices, members of the International Energy Agency (IEA) agreed on March 11 to release 400 million barrels of oil from their reserves, the largest withdrawal on record, including 172 million barrels of oil from the United States. Some nations are taking additional actions beyond those releases, according to the agency.

Burgum said during the interview that Japan is helping lead the coalition of nations to increase oil supply amid the ongoing conflict in Iran.

He also said that Japan and other Asia-Pacific allies are seeking to buy more energy from the United States, but he did not provide further details.

“From a Japan standpoint, ​when they’re ​dependent on ⁠oil coming out of the Strait, great indication of their ​partnership with the United States and ⁠great indication of their leadership on the world stage to jump in and say they’re going ⁠to ​release a significant portion of ​their reserves to help make sure the molecules that are needed over here in Asia,” Burgum said.

“The U.S. … releasing 172 million barrels, we don’t need the molecules. We’re not getting oil out of the Strait of Hormuz, but we’re doing things like that because we understand the importance of our allies in the global economy, and we understand that the price in the U.S. is set by global markets.”