# Chevron **Chevron Corporation** is the second-largest U.S. oil major. It descends from the 1911 [[Standard Oil Breakup]] as Standard Oil Co. of California, and took the Chevron name in 1984 when it absorbed [[Gulf Oil]]. Its chairman and CEO since 2018 is **Mike Wirth**. In the vault's terms, Chevron is the American oil company that **stayed in Venezuela**. That bet turned it from a sanctions problem into the anchor of Washington's post-Maduro oil policy. ## The 2024–25 consolidation - **Hess and Guyana.** Chevron agreed to buy Hess for about **$53 billion**. ExxonMobil and CNOOC claimed a right of first refusal over Hess's **30% stake in Guyana's Stabroek Block**, the decade's largest oil discovery. Chevron won the ICC arbitration, and the deal closed on **July 18, 2025**. - **The move to Texas.** On **Aug 2, 2024**, Chevron announced it would move its headquarters from San Ramon, California to Houston. Wirth and Vice Chairman Mark Nelson relocated by year's end, and corporate functions are moving over five years. It is the flagship case of the energy industry leaving California's regulatory climate. - **The cuts.** In February 2025 Chevron announced it would cut **15–20% of its global workforce**, about 9,000 jobs, by the end of 2026, as part of $2–3 billion in structural cost savings. - **Results.** Q2 2026 net income was **$12.07 billion** on production of 4.07 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, up 20% from a year earlier. ## Venezuela Chevron is the only U.S. major that kept its joint ventures with [[PDVSA]] through both Maduro-era sanctions regimes: | Date | Event | |---|---| | Nov 26, 2022 | [[Office of Foreign Assets Control]] General License 41 lets Chevron operate its PDVSA joint ventures | | Feb–Mar 2025 | The Trump administration revokes GL 41 and orders a wind-down (GL 41A, Mar 4) | | Late July 2025 | A narrower license lets Chevron resume pumping, with no payments to the Maduro government | | Jan 3, 2026 | [[Nicolás Maduro]] is captured. Chevron's joint ventures produce about 240,000 bpd. | | Jan–Feb 2026 | OFAC issues a run of new Venezuela general licenses (GL 46 through 50A) | | Apr 13, 2026 | Asset swap raises Chevron to **49% of Petroindependencia**. Its joint ventures produce about **260,000 bpd**, roughly a quarter of national output. | | Sept 2, 2026 | Chevron commits **more than $7 billion over five years** to reach about **600,000 bpd** | The comparison with the [[Venezuela Oil Government Equity Stake]] is the point. Days before Chevron's expansion, the U.S. government took a 35% stake, through the [[Office of Strategic Capital]], in the parent of [[North American Blue Energy Partners]], described as the country's second-largest operator after Chevron. The established American company scaled up under licenses. The politically connected newcomer got a government equity partner. ## Legacy liabilities and the name in the law - **Ecuador.** An Ecuadorian court entered an $18 billion judgment against Chevron over Texaco's oil pollution in Lago Agrio, later reduced to $9.5 billion. In 2014 a U.S. federal judge found that judgment procured by fraud. The plaintiffs' lawyer, Steven Donziger, was later convicted of criminal contempt and spent months in custody (2021–22). The case remains contested: Donziger's supporters call the contempt prosecution retaliation, and Chevron points to the fraud finding. - **[[Chevron deference]]** comes from *Chevron U.S.A. v. NRDC* (1984), a Clean Air Act case the company won. [[Loper Bright v. Raimondo]] overruled the doctrine in 2024. ## See also - [[Energy Sector]] · [[ExxonMobil]] · [[Standard Oil]] · [[Gulf Oil]] - [[Venezuela]] · [[PDVSA]] · [[Nicolás Maduro]] · [[Venezuela Oil Government Equity Stake]] · [[North American Blue Energy Partners]] - [[Chevron deference]] · [[Loper Bright v. Raimondo]] · [[Climate Change]]