Energy Secretary Wright asked Chevron CEO Mike Wirth to give some information about the current status of the Venezuelan oil industry. Chevron has been on the ground in Venezuela for a long period of time and has significant infrastructure investment already in place.
Wirth notes that with current personnel (3,000) and equipment (4 locations) on site, Chevron could likely double capacity almost immediately, however, from there it would take approximately 18-months to gain more significant outputs.
President Trump asked if Chevron was in a position of advantage from already having their people and material already in operation, Wright noted generally yes, they do; however, the opportunities for industrial capacity gains are significant.
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And business being business….(business is in business to make money)…there are business plans in effect…to achieve that aim. And time is money and all that.
Nothing wrong with making money.
The people of Venezuela were jailed and are now OUt
dancing in the streets everywhere ….places they have traveled to to escape the tyranny of criminals
President Trump is very special in seeing the whole picture and having an administration that does as well.
Odd, no country came to rescue our J6 political prisoners.
Trump is acting out a DC version of the Beverly Hillbillies with Venezuelan oil . Trump is Jed but who is granny? Susie Wiles? Marco Rubio is Jethro.
I’m more worried about who is cousin Pearl. I never trusted her.
Mr . Drysdale is no danger.
I was surprised they let Susie Wiles out of the cold for this. After her FUBAR’d interview with Vanity Fair, she has no business being on the inside.
I don’t care who Granny is.
Where is Ellie May in her blue jeans?
No.
Adults are back in charge. A rising tide lifts all boats.
This was truly an amazing meeting to watch. Amazing. I encourage everyone to watch the full meeting before the press was kicked out and they got down to business.
Watching it, I fully came to realize how irrelevant the Dimmy party and their useful idiots are. At this meeting were the masters of the world, together, making significant decisions. All else is irritable noise – like a bunch of annoying, yapping chihuahuas, nothing more.
That’s an insult to all Chihuahuas! And I’m not really fond of them myself!
A cursory dive into history says that Venezuela first seized the foreign oil assets in 1976, then over the next 30 years began to relax, allowing companies back into the country.
Then our friend Hugo Chavez seized them again in 2007, taking majority ownership of operations. Chevron, BP, Total, and Statoil become minority partners (< 40%), allowing them to stay in the country. ExxonMobile and ConocoPhillips left their assets behind.
My belief is that, while Chevron continued to partly-operate the plants, they weren’t running at peak efficiency since (like all communist results) workers who don’t personally benefit from their work aren’t motivated to work. So it’s reasonable to assume that, under for profit ownership and operation, Chevron could easily double efficiency from the communist lows.
Unlike other major U.S. oil companies such as ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, which exited Venezuela in 2007 when then-President Hugo Chávez mandated majority state ownership of foreign oil assets, Chevron chose to remain by negotiating minority stakes in joint ventures with Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A
Chevron played the long game and came out ahead. However, Chevron did move their HQ from CA so they could play ball with Venezuela but CA democrats are a bridge too far. Worse than Chavez and Maduro.
Chevron remaining in Venezuela negotiating minority stakes in joint ventures with PDVSA paid off.
It is still speculative that the move to Texas was to ‘play ball’. It was driven by a combination of lower taxes and a more favorable lighter regulatory environment, which may have facilitated broader operational flexibility and long-term competitiveness. The move reduced exposure to California’s stringent environmental regulations as well as high corporate tax rates. Texas offers a business-friendly climate with no state personal income tax and a lower corporate franchise tax; reducing the overall tax burden on both company and employees with significant financial incentives; compared to California’s 8.8% corporate tax rate. This shift aligns with a broader trend of companies relocating from California to Texas, including Tesla, Oracle, and Hewlett Packard, due to similar economic advantages.
The move enables Chevron particularly, to be closer to its core operations, its and industry partners in Houston, often referred to as the “energy capital of the world,” improving collaboration and access to talent and resources.
Despite some debate over the actual tax impact; since Chevron still pays taxes on its operations in both states, the relocation is seen more as a strategic decision to improve efficiency and reduce regulatory friction. Chevron cited California’s regulatory challenges, including a $4 billion asset write-down, linked to state policies like the margin penalty on refiners, as key reasons for the move.
While Chevron maintains some presence in California to support its existing operations, the headquarters shift is a significant strategic pivot toward a region perceived as more conducive to long-term business growth and flexibility.
“Opportunities for industrial capacity gains are significant.” That’s corporate doublespeak for, “The equipment currently in place is so dilapidated that the sites are barely productive.” And yet they expect to double that capacity in the near-term, with further gains in just 18 months. It doesn’t sound too awfully dilapidated to me. I think Wirth is being cautious in the hopes of some government security guarantees, and I don’t blame him. Chevron already got bitten by the Venezuelans once. And of course the senate has already voted to stop Trump from putting any security forces in Venezuela without their approval. AFAIK, that’s overreaching, but I suppose Trump will cross that bridge when he gets there.
The Senate vote was not a veto proof majority. Trump can veto that.
I hadn’t considered that. So it was just the usual political theater from them!
Has Chevron been a part of supplying oil going against US sanctions?
They are not going behind President Trump’s back. Chevron plays by the rules.
Political prisoners freed., kicked out China influence & other bad players. The price of oil will continue to drop taming inflation. The world got to see our new military capabilities. What’s not to like?
Chevron is definitely positioned best of all the big energy companies to really scale up in Venezuela.
I would also caution everyone reading here about getting too excited about that.
All the big oil companies right now are actively decimating their American-based offices, firing as many people as possible and outsourcing every single job they can to India. Their shrinking teams in America are having oversee an burgeoning amount of substandard engineering and project managment from the Indian offices. (I shuold note, unlike in IT, there aren’t as many fake scam engineering situations with in-India hiring. The problems with the Indian offices tend to be different. Anybody decent is just looking to pad out their resume for a government job in 2-3 years so there’s no longevity or development/rentention of expertise, there is a lot of in-fighting between castes, and just in general the work ethic isn’t there).
Chevron right now is a particulaly big offender in this regard.
Any growth that comes out of this WILL happen in India, with that money flowing to India, while experienced American engineers continue to be laid off and the next generation is starved of the opportunity and experience they need. Something absolutely has to be done about it.
Personally I think the Venezuela thing is a great piece of leverage for stopping this off-shoring nonsense; hire American or maybe we’ll start considering you foreign companies, no we don’t care where your CEO lives.
But that would require people paying attention, and unfortunately the energy sector is so demonized I don’t think many people would care even if they knew. I think it’s going to take a rig blowing up or a carbon dioxide injection pipeline failing, some kind of really big disaster, for the American public to take notice. And even then, these weenies will probably claim that it was the grossly overworked review team in America that was at fault.
Yin,
Thank you for that assessment. American engineers are the best. Indian…….well…..not so much. Taught a few, worked with and around a few… work ethic is not there. Just infighting.
God bless,
Mike
yes, that whole caste thing is a problem, AND, Indians dislike working with women.
Throw in a few Paki’s and watch out!
Paki’s that I’ve worked with are some of the most arrogant dumb a$$es, zero logic.
Had Indians trying to reverse engineer a controller on the long distance telephone line. Informed them there are schematics learn to read them.
I should note, oil and gas has so many little sub-specialties that it really is international; the big firms here in the US employ Norwegians, Brits, Australians, Argentinians, etc. But those are people who are usually top of their field, speak English fluently, did at least one of their degrees here in the US and want to be here/fit in, culturally speaking.
I have family in the industry, and nobody thought much of the Indian outsourcing thing at first since they’re so used to dealing with international teams. But these India-based offices are turning out to be very different and the more of it there is, the bigger problems they are having.
Years ago I worked as a contractor at Chevron San Ramon, cataloging maps from the Texaco acquisition. I came across several that were done by future president Herbert Hoover , geologist. No, oil companies never throw anything away.
Interesting!
Mike Wirth will under promise and probably over produce. In a couple months Trump and Wirth will have another conference and be able to showcase their achievements. Mike knows exactly what he has and how to fix it in Venezuela. Wirth was one of the first oil execs contacted, my guess, Chevron had a huge footprint in Venezuela. We as a people have been programmed to accept failure ie, Afghan withdrawal, Vietnam collapse, botched raid in Iran to rescue hostages, Love Canal, Gold King Mine, Windmills off our coasts, Flint MI water, the border, 2020 election, East Palestine OH, fires in HI and CA, Hillary….
Adults in charge, plans executed. The nose ring, colored hair, alphabet crowd are hanging at ICE raids and can now put on their very limited life experiences…paid protester.
I would fix the typo in the article’s title: change Worth –> Wirth.
Me too.
The public comment session was very productive and all of the energy people sounded excited about the opportunity President Trump was presenting. The acutual negotiation occurred behind closed doors. All the guessing and posturing by the MSM is propoganda. By the way, Mike Wirth, Chairman of Chevron, was absent from the meeting because he had a knee replaced. Mark Nelson, Vice Chairman, performed impeccably in his stead. My wife and I have Exxon and Chevron stock and we are excited about making more money.
Ed, will you correct the spelling of Mr. Wirth’s name?
So, rebuilding the Venezuelan oil industry would cost about thirty Somali-run day care centers…. Let’s go.
ROFLOL!!!!!
Whether they meant it or not, I did appreciate the fact that they both said they would be “making money for the people of Venezuela,” and then also the United States. Keeping their freedoms in the limelight will incentivize them in more ways than military action could.
The oil in Venezuela is plentiful, but hard to profitably extract.
“Chevron has been on the ground in Venezuela for a long period of time and has significant infrastructure investment already in place.”
I remember years ago when Joe Kennedy II (Senator Robert F. Kennedy’s son) had a deal going with the Venezuelan oil industry via a creation of his called Citizens Energy Corporation, where they would provide #2 home heating oil at a reduced rate to help subsidize heating costs to low income households in the northeast. I remember the ads on TV. “Call 1-800- Joe For Oil to see if you qualify” Wonder what happened to that deal. Rule Number One: “Follow the Money!”
The entire meeting was meaningful and really enjoyable. The one thing I got, is all of those companies seem to have their honor to the USA, but as a motivated as Trump to make money and product for America. A really interesting dynamic when oil producers have been blamed for greed, etc. Very educating and gives me a better idea of the deals Trump does with business, which he has always done. The Art of the Deal! God, Thank You for Choosing Trump to do your will to save America as our President! God is it possible we can have him for one more term? According to your Will. Trump is A true American.
Trump diplomacy is much more efficient than the UselessN type