Oil pricesfinished Thursday 10 percent below where they started three months ago, despite moving higher in the month of April. In a CNBC exclusive, Maria Bartiromo interviewed Shell Oil President Marvin Odum.
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Odum said the "SPR was a non-event,” when asked about the IEA's recent move to bring down oil prices with the release of 60 million barrels of oil.
The idea behind the Strategic Petroleum Reserve is “oil is there for emergency purposes. And do I consider now an emergency? No I don’t,” said Odum.
Outside of prices, Shell is looking to drill off the coast of Alaska. Right now, lawmakers are set to streamline regulations around Arctic drilling that would speed development of oil and gas reserves off Alaska's coast.
Shell wants to get into this game, drilling 10 wells in 2012. Odum believes this is a significant opportunity for the company.
The U.S. currently produces around 10 million barrels of oil a day. Supporters of this Arctic drilling say the areas could yield an extra 1 million barrels a day of oil, while creating north of 50,000 American jobs over the next 50 years.
Shell is also turning to natural gas. Odum called it an “enormous opportunity.”
Odum said “natural gas has completely changed the U.S. energy picture.” And while it can’t replace oil, Odum said it can supplement it as we face a 100-year supply of the commodity.
Donna Burton contributed to the article.
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