Next U.S. president shouldn't surrender America's energy dominance, TotalEnergies CEO warns

Whoever wins the 2024 U.S. election should work to preserve America's energy dominance rather than risk losing it, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne told CNBC on Monday.

The U.S. is the world's largest oil producer, accounting for 22% of the global total, according to the Energy Information Administration, with Saudi Arabia next, producing 11%. The vast majority of U.S. crude is consumed within the country, which is also the world's largest oil consumer.

"U.S. energy has been unleashed. In fact, when you look to what happened since the last two, three years, production of oil has never been so high ... [the] revolution of U.S. shale is really taking place," Pouyanne told CNBC's Dan Murphy at the annual Adipec oil conference in Abu Dhabi.

Roughly 64% of total U.S. crude oil production is shale and the French international energy firm CEO said the U.S. will also soon be No. 1 in liquified natural gas (LNG) production.

"I think that is part of political rhetoric," Pouyanne said. "My view is that whoever the [winning] camp is, in fact, energy is really one of the big competitive advantages for the U.S. and whoever will win [will put] U.S. first, I would say."

Looking ahead to the election, former President Donald Trump and the Republican party have long been proponents of U.S. shale production, pushing for deregulation of the industry and an expansion of drilling projects — drawing the ire of climate activists and many on the left.

But Democratic contender and Vice President Kamala Harris has now changed her position on fracking, expressing support for the controversial oil and gas extraction process and pledging not to ban it as president, despite years of vocal opposition.

Short for hydraulic fracturing, the process — which uses