The article profiles Scott Sheffield, the veteran US oil executive who helped build Pioneer Natural Resources and transform Texas’s Permian Basin into a major global energy hub. Now retired, Sheffield acknowledges that the climate is warming, citing changes he says he can see on his New Mexico ranch, while continuing to defend the importance of oil and gas to energy security and the economy.

Sheffield’s career spans more than four decades and includes the development of the Permian shale industry, Pioneer’s roughly $60bn sale to ExxonMobil, and a subsequent dispute with the US Federal Trade Commission. The article also examines his views on climate change, the future of fossil fuels and the tensions between the oil industry’s economic success and its contribution to global warming.