This is a carousel. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate

Kelly Jones, left, and Rhonda Cenance, pre-delivery inspectors, look over a 2022 Ford F-150 Lightning inside the plant where it will be built, the Rouge Electric Vehicle Center at the Ford Rouge Plant in Dearborn, Michigan, on Sept. 16, 2021. (Eric Seals/Detroit Free Press/TNS)

File photo of a multi-well hydraulic fracturing operation March 24, 2021 in Midland County, Texas. Photo Credit: The Oilfield Photographer, Inc.

Oil pumping jacks operate in an oilfield near Neftekamsk, in the Republic of Bashkortostan, Russia, on Nov. 19, 2020. MUST CREDIT: Bloomberg photo by Andrey Rudakov.

The supertanker New Odyssey is a very large crude carrier. Its length is nearly 1,100 feet and has a capacity of carrying up to 755,000 barrels of oil. Docked at the entrance of a narrow channel, the ship had to be turned around in the middle harbor before heading to sea, Friday, Dec. 3, 2021, in Port of Long Beach, California. (Allen J. Schaben/Los Angeles Times/TNS)

FILE - Tesla cars at a charging in San Diego, July 21, 2021. The company is aiming to increase its production by 50 percent a year for the next several years. (Roger Kisby/The New York Times)

Joel Newsom works on a production line at Orion Assembly in July. "GM is preaching the future for us; we can't always base it on fossil fuels," he says of the company's strategy that prioritizes electric vehicles. But an electric vehicle doesn't fit his family's needs, he says. MUST CREDIT: Photo for The Washington Post by Nic Antaya

Global oil companies are ramping up production as four U.S. automakers roll out four new all-electric pickups.

Are these contradictory business plans? A failure of markets? The collapse of climate change mitigation?

No, this is the energy transition. A little of this, and a little of that, until efficient competition rewards a winning strategy.

OPEC, Russia and their allies agreed Tuesday to continue adding 400,000 barrels of oil a day to the global market each month. Demand is rising as we learn to live with COVID-19, and we will need more energy as economic activity exceeds 2019 levels.

Texas and Oklahoma oil executives are also ramping up, according to a quarterly survey by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.

“Most executives expect their firm’s capital spending to rise in 2022 compared with 2021,” the Dallas Fed reported. “Forty-four percent of executives said they expect capital spending to increase slightly, while an additional 31 percent anticipate a significant increase.”

More drilling means more jobs. The industry has already added more than 35,000 positions since January 2021, according to the Texas Workforce Commission. But there are headwinds, notably higher costs for labor, rigs and capital.

TOMLINSON’S TAKE: There's no energy crisis that higher fossil fuel prices will not fix

OPEC and its allies will also defend their market share by ensuring prices don’t rise too high and trigger more investment in North American oil fields. The cartel is watching demand and price closely and adding capacity to keep them stable at an acceptable level for all.

Texas and Oklahoma drillers are budgeting $65 to $70 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate in 2022. But analysts expect prices to remain around the current level, $75 a barrel, which, if true, should put a damper on inflation next year.

Some headline-grabbing analysts say oil could hit $100 or more. But only a geopolitical crisis or market manipulation could trigger such a spike; there is no shortage of available supply.

Current prices are high enough, though, to make new electric vehicles more attractive. While battery prices remain high, the $1.10 a gallon equivalent for fuel makes EVs more price-competitive when gasoline averages $3.25 a gallon.

Market watchers predict global plug-in electric vehicle sales, including hybrids and EVs, will reach 6.5 million in 2021, up from 3.1 million in 2020. EV sales in November 2021 jumped 88 percent over the previous year.

EV market share will jump even more in 2022. Tesla could sell 1.5 million EVs alone, and China’s BYD expects to sell 1.2 million. Ford has 200,000 preorders for the electric version of the best-selling automobile in America, the F-150. GM will release the electric Hummer pickup this year.

Automakers have pledged more than $100 billion to EV development. Battery makers are developing new chemistries and designs. Miners are finding new sources of raw materials. And entrepreneurs are developing new tools to improve efficiency across the supply chain.

EV makers are on pace to match the manufacturing cost of internal combustion vehicles by 2023. Once an EV purchase price is on par, the main differential will be range and refueling time. Since most people drive less than 40 miles a day, EVs will be more economical for most uses.

Road trippers will not have to wait long, though. Tesla already offers a 400-mile range, Lucid’s first model this year has a 520-mile range, and Mercedes this week announced a new sedan with a 630-mile battery.

Oil companies, meanwhile, face only rising costs as crude reserves become more expensive to access and governments consider taxing carbon, adding to fuel costs.

Widespread adoption of EVs does not spell the end of the oil business. Some industries, such as aviation, will be difficult to decarbonize. People also tend to hold on to their vehicles for a decade or more, which means replacing all internal combustion engines will take generations.

TOMLINSON’S TAKE: Don't fall for Big Oil's propaganda on the future of energy

The wildcard for the oil industry is the weather. Almost every community has experienced or witnessed an extraordinary climate event in 2021. More places will experience deadly droughts, freak storms, extraordinary flooding, or fierce fires as the planet grows warmer.

Fossil fuel advocates argue their product lifts people out of poverty by supplying cheap energy. But how many people who experience climate change firsthand will stick with a product that destroys homes and livelihoods?

Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Phasing down our oil consumption only makes sense, both for the environment and our pocketbooks.

We need oil companies to keep pumping crude and delivering affordable fuels, for now. Big Oil can be part of the problem or join the transition to clean energy and sustain relevance. But the energy shift is unstoppable.

Chris Tomlinson writes commentary about business, economics and politics.

Chris Tomlinson has written commentary about money, politics and life in Texas for Hearst Newspapers since 2014. In 2021, the Texas Association of Managing Editors awarded him columnist of the year, and the Headliner's Foundation named him Texas's Star Opinion Writer. He's authored two New York Times Bestsellers, "Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth" and "Tomlinson Hill: The Remarkable Story of Two Families Who Share the Tomlinson Name - One White, One Black." Before joining the Houston Chronicle, he spent 20 years with The Associated Press reporting on politics, economics, conflicts and natural disasters from more than 30 countries in Africa, the Middle East and Europe.

Instead of shutting down the program immediately, they let it fade away over the course of a year. A tidal wave of applicants has now rushed to seek billions of additional dollars in last-minute tax breaks.

By Eric Dexheimer and Mike Morris