Oil companies may have President Donald Trump cheering them on from the bully pulpit. But in the oil patch, the mood is anything but celebratory.

New data on Wednesday from the Dallas Fed Energy Survey, which polled oil and gas executives at 139 firms across Texas, northern Louisiana and southern New Mexico in mid-September, shows oil and gas activity slipped again in the third quarter of 2025, weighed down by soaring costs, policy uncertainty, and the chaos of new tariffs.

The survey’s broadest measure of business conditions, the business activity index, came in at –6.5, marking the second consecutive quarter of contraction.

The outlook was even gloomier. The company outlook index plunged to –17.6 from –6.4, while more than 44% of firms said uncertainty remains elevated. Productio

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