Chevron Reshuffles Front Office After Layoff Announcement

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Written by Daniel Graeber for Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Posting close to a 20% year-on-year loss in revenue and announcing layoffs recently, U.S. supermajor Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) (San Ramon, California) said it was consolidating some of its departments as part of a broader streamlining effort.

Formed originally as the Standard Oil Company of California in the 1870s, Chevron last year announced plans to move its headquarters from its campus in San Ramon, California, to Houston, Texas. The plans, announced in August, coincided with the retirement of several front-office staff, including 35-year staff veteran Nigel Hearne, who retired as the executive vice president of oil, products and natural gas at Chevron.

On Tuesday, the company announced that some of its senior leadership was reshuffled, while it consolidated its oil, products and gas business into two units--upstream and downstream, and midstream and chemicals.

"Our new organizational structure and leadership appointments are designed to improve our operational efficiency and position Chevron for sustained growth," said Mike Wirth, Chevron's chairman and chief executive officer. "These changes will help enable us to drive innovation and execution and deliver value for our shareholders."

The company stood out against its peers during the fourth quarter by posting total earnings of $3.3 billion, a 43% improvement over the same period in 2023. But full-year earnings declined 17%, or about $3.7 billion, to $17.7 billion.

For just its downstream segment, it took a $248 million loss during the period, compared with $1.1 billion in profit during the fourth quarter of 2023.

Working to cut costs by as much as $3 billion by the end of 2026, the company recently sold off some of its assets in Alaska, Canada and the Republic of Congo.

Early this month, the company said it would trim about 9,000 positions from its payroll, or about 20% of its global workforce. Leaning instead on robotics and artificial intelligence, the company said the cuts were necessary to stay competitive in the global market.

Chevron, however, has remained active during the adjustment period. Alongside the controlling partner and operator Shell plc (NYSE:SHEL) (London, England), Chevron recently announced that production began at the Whale prospect in the Alaminos Canyon Block about 200 miles south of Houston.

The partners at Whale estimated peak offshore production would be around 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (Boe/d), with much of that in oil. Chevron achieved first production at its Anchor project offshore and boosted output at the Jack/St. Malo and Tahiti facilities in the Gulf of Mexico, renamed by the Trump administration as the Gulf of America, last year.

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