Chevron Corporation

History

Predecessors

One of Chevron's early predecessors, "Star Oil", discovered oil at the Pico Canyon Oilfield in the Santa Susana Mountains north of Los Angeles in 1876. The 25 barrels of oil per day well marked the discovery of the Newhall Field, and is considered by geophysicist Marius Vassiliou as the beginning of the modern oil industry in California. Energy analyst Antonia Juhasz has said that while Star Oil's founders were influential in establishing an oil industry in California, Union Mattole Company discovered oil in the state eleven years prior.

In September 1879, Charles N. Felton, Lloyd Tevis, George Loomis and others created the "Pacific Coast Oil Company", which acquired the assets of Star Oil with $1 million in funding. Pacific Coast Oil eventually became the largest oil interest in California, and in 1900, John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil acquired Pacific Coast Oil for $761,000. In 1906, the Pacific Coast acquired the business operations and assets of the Standard Oil Company (Iowa). At this time, Pacific renamed itself the Standard Oil Company (California).

Since the acquisition of the Pacific Coast Oil Company by Standard Oil, the Standard descendant had traditionally worked closely with Texaco for 100 years, before acquiring Texaco outright in 2001. Originally known as the Texas Fuel Company (later the Texas Company), Texaco was founded in Beaumont, Texas, as an oil-equipment vendor by "Buckskin Joe". The founder's nickname came from being harsh and aggressive. Texas Fuel worked closely with Chevron. In 1936, it formed a joint venture with California Standard named Caltex, to drill and produce oil in Saudi Arabia. According to energy analyst and activist shareholder Antonia Juhasz, the Texas Fuel Company and California Standard were often referred to as the "terrible twins" for their cutthroat business practices.

Formation of the Chevron name

In 1911, the federal government broke Standard Oil into several pieces under the Sherman Antitrust Act. One of those pieces, Standard Oil Co. (California), went on to become Chevron. It became part of the "Seven Sisters", which dominated the world oil industry in the early 20th century. In 1926, the company changed its name to Standard Oil Co. of California (SOCAL). By the terms of the breakup of Standard Oil, at first Standard of California could use the Standard name only within its original geographic area of the Pacific coast states, plus Nevada and Arizona; outside that area, it had to use another name.

Today, Chevron is the owner of the Standard Oil trademark in 16 states in the western and southeastern United States. Since American trademark law operates under a use-it-or-lose-it rule, the company owns and operates one Standard-branded Chevron station in each state of the area. However, though Chevron (as CalSo) acquired Kyso in the 1960s, its status in Kentucky is unclear after Chevron withdrew its brand from retail sales from Kentucky in July 2010.

The 'Chevron' name came into use for some of its retail products in the 1930s. The name "Calso" was also used from 1946 to 1955, in states outside its native West Coast territory.

Standard Oil Company of California ranked 75th among United States corporations in the value of World War II military production contracts.

In 1933, Saudi Arabia granted California Standard a concession to find oil, which led to the discovery of oil in 1938. In 1948, California Standard discovered the world's largest oil field in Saudi Arabia, Ghawar Field. California Standard's subsidiary, California-Arabian Standard Oil Company, grew over the years and became the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) in 1944. In 1973, the Saudi government began buying into ARAMCO. By 1980, the company was entirely owned by the Saudis, and in 1988, its name was changed to Saudi Arabian Oil Company—Saudi Aramco.

Standard Oil of California and Gulf Oil merged in 1984, which was the largest merger in history at that time. To comply with U.S. antitrust law, California Standard divested many of Gulf's operating subsidiaries, and sold some Gulf stations in the eastern United States and a Philadelphia refinery which has since closed. Among the assets sold off were Gulf's retail outlets in Gulf's home market of Pittsburgh, where Chevron lacks a retail presence but did retain a regional headquarters there between 2010 to 2021, partially for Marcellus Shale-related drilling. The same year, Standard Oil of California also took the opportunity to change its legal name to Chevron Corporation, since it had already been using the well-known "Chevron" retail brand name for decades. Chevron would sell the Gulf Oil trademarks for the entire U.S. to Cumberland Farms, the parent company of Gulf Oil LP, in 2010 after Cumberland Farms had a license to the Gulf trademark in the Northeastern United States since 1986.

Acquisitions and diversification

The early 2000s saw Chevron engage in many mergers, acquisitions, and sales, the first largest of which was the $45 billion acquisition of Texaco, announced on October 15, 2000. The acquisition created the second-largest oil company in the United States and the world's fourth-largest publicly traded oil company with a combined market value of approximately $95 billion. Completed on October 9, 2001, Chevron temporarily renamed itself to ChevronTexaco between 2001 and 2005; after the company reverted its name to Chevron, Texaco became used as a brand by the company for some of its fueling stations.

2005 also saw Chevron purchase Unocal Corporation for $18.4 billion, increasing the company's petroleum and natural gas reserves by about 15%. Because of Unocal's large South East Asian geothermal operations, Chevron became a large producer of geothermal energy. The deal did not include Unocal's former retail operations including the Union 76 trademark, as it had sold that off to Tosco Corporation in 1997. The 76 brand is owned by Phillips 66, unaffiliated with Chevron.

Chevron and the Los Alamos National Laboratory started a cooperation in 2006, to improve the recovery of hydrocarbons from oil shale by developing a shale oil extraction process named Chevron CRUSH. In 2006, the United States Department of the Interior issued a research, development and demonstration lease for Chevron's demonstration oil shale project on public lands in Colorado's Piceance Basin. In February 2012, Chevron notified the Bureau of Land Management and the Department of Reclamation, Mining and Safety that it intended to divest this lease.

In 2008, Chevron Limited, a subsidiary of Chevron, sold its equity distributor business in the UK to GB Oils Limited for £21.9 million.

Starting in 2010, Chevron began to reduce its retail footprint and expand in domestic natural gas. In July 2010, Chevron ended retail operations in the Mid-Atlantic United States by removing the Chevron and Texaco names from 1,100 stations. In 2011, Chevron acquired Pennsylvania-based Atlas Energy Inc. for $3.2 billion in cash and an additional $1.1 billion in existing debt owed by Atlas. Three months later, Chevron acquired drilling and development rights for another 228,000 acres in the Marcellus Shale from Chief Oil & Gas LLC and Tug Hill, Inc. In September 2013, Total S.A. and its joint-venture partner agreed to buy Chevron's retail distribution business in Pakistan for an undisclosed amount.

Corporate image

Logo evolution

The first logo featured the legend "Pacific Coast Oil Co.", the name adopted by the company when it was established in 1879. Successive versions showed the word 'Standard' (for "The Standard Oil of California"). In 1968, the company introduced the word 'Chevron' (which was introduced as a brand in the 1930s) for the first time in its logo. In July 2014, the Chevron Corporation logo design was officially changed, although it has been used since 2000. By 2015, the logo had been changed multiple times, with three different color schemes applied in the logo. The logo was gray, then blue, and then turned red before returning to the silver gray it is today.

"Human Energy"

Chevron today is well known for its slogan "the human energy company", a campaign first launched in September 2007. In a corporate blog, Chevron states "human energy" was chosen as its campaign's slogan and focus because "human energy captures our positive spirit in delivering energy to a rapidly changing world". The slogan remains prominent in Chevron advertising, and Chevron has derived from this slogan to use phrases in marketing such as "it's only human".

Operations

As of December 31, 2025, Chevron had 43,039 employees, including 37,860 non-service-station employees, of whom 19,366 were based in the United States.

Chevron's dominant regions of production are North America, which produces 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BBOE), and Eurasia, which produces 1.4 BBOE. Chevron's Eurasian-Pacific operations are concentrated in the United Kingdom, Southeast Asia, Kazakhstan, Australia, Bangladesh, and greater China. Chevron additionally operates in South America, the west coast of sub-Saharan Africa (mainly Nigeria and Angola), Egypt, and Iraq; these four regions collectively produce 0.4 BBOE. Chevron's largest revenue products are shale and tight, though produces considerable revenue from heavy oil, deepwater offshore drilling, conventional oil, and liquefied natural gas.

In October 2015, Chevron announced that it was cutting up to 7,000 jobs, or 11 percent of its workforce. Because of the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 Russia–Saudi Arabia oil price war, Chevron announced reductions of 10–15% of its workforce.

Upstream

Chevron's oil and gas exploration and production operations, which in the oil and gas industry are considered as "upstream" operations, are primarily in the US, Australia, Nigeria, Angola, Kazakhstan, and the Gulf of Mexico. As of December 31, 2018, the company's upstream business reported worldwide net production of 2.930 million oil-equivalent barrels per day.

In the United States, the company operates approximately 11,000 oil and natural gas wells in hundreds of fields occupying 4,000,000 acres (16,000 km2) across the Permian Basin, located in West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. In 2010, Chevron was the fourth-largest producer in the region. In February 2011, Chevron celebrated the production of its 5 billionth barrel of Permian Basin oil. The Gulf of Mexico is where the company's deepest offshore drilling takes place at Tahiti and Blind Faith. The company also explored and drilled in the Marcellus Shale formation under several northeastern US states; these operations were sold to the Pittsburgh-based natural gas firm EQT Corporation in 2020.

In December 2019, Chevron announced the Anchor Field project, a deepwater high-pressure oil development in the Gulf of Mexico. The $5,7 billion project is able to extract 75,000 barrels of crude oil as well as 28 million cubic feet of natural gas per day and started production in August 2024. Co-owner of the project is Total E&P USA Inc, a subsidiary of TotalEnergies, with 37.14% working interests.

Chevron's largest single resource project is the $43 billion Gorgon Gas Project in Australia. It also produces natural gas from Western Australia. The $43 billion project was started in 2010, and was expected to be brought online in 2014. The project includes construction of a 15 million tonne per annum liquefied natural gas plant on Barrow Island, and a domestic gas plant with the capacity to provide 300 terajoules per day to supply gas to Western Australia.

It is also developing the Wheatstone liquefied natural gas development in Western Australia. The foundation phase of the project is estimated to cost $29 billion; it will consist of two LNG processing trains with a combined capacity of 8.9 million tons per annum, a domestic gas plant and associated offshore infrastructure. In August 2014 a significant gas-condensate discovery at the Lasseter-1 exploration well in WA-274-P in Western Australia, in which Chevron has a 50% interest was announced. The company also has an interest in the North West Shelf Venture, equally shared with five other investors including BP, BHP Petroleum, Shell, Mitsubishi/Mitsui and Woodside. Presently, Chevron is looking to convert its Gorgon Island operations from upstream production to carbon capture and storage.

Midstream

As of 2019, outside of maritime shipping, Chevron did not own significant midstream assets; that year it attempted to purchase Anadarko Petroleum, which owned pipelines, but was outbid by Occidental Petroleum. In 2021, Chevron completed its purchase of Noble Midstream Partners LP, which has crude oil, produced water and gas gathering assets in the Permian Basin in West Texas and the DJ Basin in Colorado. Noble Midstream also has 2 crude oil terminals in the DJ Basin as well as freshwater delivery systems.

Chevron Shipping Company, a wholly owned subsidiary, provides the maritime transport operations, marine consulting services and marine risk management services for Chevron Corporation. Chevron ships historically had names beginning with "Chevron", such as Chevron Washington and Chevron South America, or were named after former or serving directors of the company. Samuel Ginn, William E. Crain, Kenneth Derr, Richard Matzke and most notably Condoleezza Rice were among those honored, but the ship named after Rice was subsequently renamed as Altair Voyager.

Downstream

Chevron's downstream operations manufacture and sell products such as fuels, lubricants, additives and petrochemicals. The company's most significant areas of operations are the west coast of North America, the U.S. Gulf Coast, Southeast Asia, South Korea, Australia and South Africa. In 2010, Chevron sold an average of 3.1 million barrels per day (490×10^3 m3/d) of refined products like gasoline, diesel and jet fuel. The company operates approximately 19,550 retail sites in 84 countries. Chevron's Asia downstream headquarters is in Singapore, and the company operates gas stations (under the Caltex brand) within the city state, in addition to some gas stations in Western Canada. Chevron owns the trademark rights to Texaco and Caltex fuel and lubricant products.

Chevron, with equal partner Singapore Petroleum Company, also owns half of the 285,000 barrels per day (45,300 m3/d) Singapore Refining Company (SRC) plant, a complex refinery capable of cracking crude oil. The investment was first made in 1979 when Caltex was a one-third partner. In 2026, however, Chevron agreed to divest key downstream assets in Singapore and across Southeast Asia to ENEOS Holdings in a US$2.17 billion transaction expected to close in 2027.

In 2010, Chevron processed 1.9 million barrels per day (300×10^3 m3/d) of crude oil. It owns and operates Five active refineries in the United States (Richmond, CA, El Segundo, CA, Salt Lake City, UT, Pascagoula, MS, Pasadena, TX ). Chevron is the non-operating partner in seven joint venture refineries, located in Australia, Pakistan, Singapore, Thailand, South Korea, and New Zealand. Chevron's United States refineries are located in Gulf and Western states. Chevron also owns an asphalt refinery in Perth Amboy, New Jersey; however, since early 2008 that refinery has primarily operated as a terminal.

Chevron's primary chemical business is in a 50/50 joint venture with Phillips 66, organized into the Chevron Phillips Chemical Company. Chevron also operates the Chevron Oronite Company, which develops, manufactures and sells fuel and lubricant additives.

In the United States, the Chevron brand is the most widely used, at 6,880 locations as of September 2022 spread across 21 states. Chevron's highest concentration of stations branded as Chevron are in California (mostly in the San Francisco Bay Area, Central Valley, and Greater Los Angeles), Las Vegas, Anchorage, the Pacific Northwest (especially Seattle), Phoenix, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, the Texas Triangle, and South Florida. The world's largest Chevron gas station is located at Terrible's Road House in Nevada.

Alternative energy

Chevron's alternative energy operations include geothermal solar, wind, biofuel, fuel cells, and hydrogen. In 2021 it significantly increased its use of biofuel from dairy farms, like biomethane.

Chevron has claimed to be the world's largest producer of geothermal energy. The company's primary geothermal operations were located in Southeast Asia, but these assets were sold in 2017.

Prior, Chevron operated geothermal wells in Indonesia providing power to Jakarta and the surrounding area. In the Philippines, Chevron also operated geothermal wells at Tiwi field in Albay province, the Makiling-Banahaw field in Laguna and Quezon provinces.

In 2007, Chevron and the United States Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) started collaboration to develop and produce algae fuel, which could be converted into transportation fuels, such as jet fuel. In 2008, Chevron and Weyerhaeuser created Catchlight Energy LLC, which researches the conversion of cellulose-based biomass into biofuels. In 2013, the Catchlight plan was downsized due to competition with fossil fuel projects for funds.

Between 2006 and 2011, Chevron contributed up to $12 million to a strategic research alliance with the Georgia Institute of Technology to develop cellulosic biofuels and to create a process to convert biomass like wood or switchgrass into fuels.

Additionally, Chevron holds a 22% stake in Galveston Bay Biodiesel LP, which produces up to 110 million US gallons (420,000 m3) of renewable biodiesel fuel a year.

In 2010, the Chevron announced a 740 kW photovoltaic demonstration project in Bakersfield, California, called Project Brightfield, for exploring possibilities to use solar power for powering Chevron's facilities. It consists of technologies from seven companies, which Chevron is evaluating for large-scale use. In Fellows, California, Chevron has invested in the 500 kW Solarmine photovoltaic solar project, which supplies daytime power to the Midway-Sunset Oil Field. In Questa, Chevron has built a 1 MW concentrated photovoltaic plant that comprises 173 solar arrays, which use Fresnel lenses. In October 2011, Chevron launched a 29-MW thermal solar-to-steam facility in the Coalinga Field to produce the steam for enhanced oil recovery. As of 2012, the project is the largest of its kind in the world.

Climate Impact

Over its history, Chevron has produced 58,598 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. In its 2023 reporting, Chevron’s emissions intensity metrics show that its upstream oil production emits ~24 kg CO₂e per barrel of oil equivalent, its gas production is also ~24 kg CO₂e/boe, methane intensity is ~2 kg CO₂e/boe, and flaring intensity is about 3 kg CO₂e/boe. Chevron faces the difficult challenge of reducing its environmental impact while continuing to operate efficiently. Chevron must adapt to climate change regulations such as carbon taxes, creating an increase on its financial pressure, and decrease on consumers who support and use this company’s goods and services.

Corporate affairs

Business trends

As of 2018, Chevron is ranked No. 13 on the Fortune 500 rankings of the largest United States corporations by total revenue.

The key trends of Chevron are (as at the financial year ending December 31):

Ownership

Chevron is mainly owned by institutional investors, who own around 70% of shares. The largest shareholders in December 2023 were:

The Vanguard Group (8.70%)

BlackRock (6.98%)

Berkshire Hathaway (6.79%)

State Street Corporation (6.71%)

AXA (3.30 %)

Geode Capital Management (1.86%)

Morgan Stanley (1.85%)

Bank of America (1.49%)

Charles Schwab Corporation (1.41%)

JPMorgan Chase (1.38%)

Northern Trust (1.18%)

ExtraMile

In 2017 Chevron created a partnership with Jackson food stores to create a convience store for their locations with the name ExtraMile.

Headquarters and Offices

Chevron's corporate headquarters operates from office towers in downtown Houston, Texas, where it purchased 1500 Louisiana Street and 1400 Smith Street.

Upon Chevron announcing that it was selling its San Ramon headquarters in 2022, the company offered to cover moving costs for employees who wished to relocate to Texas.

On August 2, 2024, Chevron announced that it would relocate its headquarters from San Ramon, California to Houston, Texas by January 2025, citing a number of factors.

Chevron has a corporate office located in San Ramon, California, at 5001 Executive Parkway.

The company’s earlier headquarters was located at 555 Market Street in San Francisco, California, the city where it had been located since its inception in 1879. Then in 2002, Chevron moved to a 92-acre campus in San Ramon, California, located at 6001 Bollinger Canyon Road.

Chevron sold its San Ramon headquarters to the local Sunset Development Co. in September 2022, from whom it originally bought the land which the Bollinger Canyon Road office previously stood, and leases a space in San Ramon's Bishop Ranch, also owned by Sunset, as its new office, as it continues to shift more operations to Texas.

Political contributions

Since January 2011 Chevron has contributed almost $15 million on Washington lobbying. On October 7, 2012, Chevron donated $2.5 million to the Republican Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC that is closely tied to former House Speaker John Boehner.

According to watchdog group Documented, in 2020 Chevron contributed $50,000 to the Rule of Law Defense Fund, a fund-raising arm of the Republican Attorneys General Association.

Leadership

Demetrius G. Scofield, March 8, 1917 – July 30, 1917

William S. Miller, April 28, 1919 – December 23, 1919

Harry D. Collier, October 25, 1945 – January 1, 1950

R. Gwin Follis, January 1, 1950–December 1966

Otto N. Miller, December 1966–January 1974

Harold J. Haynes, January 1974–May 1981

George M. Keller, May 1981–January 1, 1989

Kenneth T. Derr, January 1, 1989 – January 1, 2000

David J. O'Reilly, January 1, 2000 – December 31, 2009

John S. Watson December 31, 2009 – February 1, 2018

Michael K. Wirth, February 1, 2018–present

George Loomis, September 10, 1879 – December 15, 1879

Charles N. Felton, December 15, 1879–August 1885

George Loomis, August 1885–April 8, 1894

Charles N. Felton, April 17, 1894–February 1896

Gordon Blanding, February 1896–October 17, 1900

Henry M. Tilford, December 18, 1900 – February 20, 1911

James A. Moffett, February 20, 1911 – December 1, 1911

Current Board of directors

Wanda Austin

John B. Frank

Alice P. Gast

Enrique Hernandez Jr.

John B. Hess

Marillyn Hewson

Jon M. Huntsman Jr.

Charles Moorman

Dambisa Moyo

Debra Reed-Klages

Ronald Sugar (Lead independent director)

Inge Thulin

Jim Umpleby

Cynthia J. Warner

Mike Wirth (Chairman & CEO)

Criticism and concerns

Chevron has been widely criticized and attacked for scandals, accidents, and activities mostly related to climate change. Chevron has been fined by the governments of Angola, for oil spills within its waters, and the United States through its EPA for violations of the US Clean Air Act and pollutive activities arising out of its Richmond Refinery in California. On multiple instances, authorities in oil-heavy countries have fired rounds onto protestors against Chevron. Environmental activists have held annual anti-Chevron protests, usually within a week of Chevron's annual meeting of shareholders.

One case heavily promoted on social media is about work done in the Lago Agrio oil field by Texaco, which Chevron acquired in 2001. Texaco dumped 18 billion tons of toxic waste and spilled 17 million US gallons (64,000,000 L) of petroleum. Texaco's activities were the subject of an Ecuadorian court case brought by Steven Donziger, which claimed an $18 billion and later reduced $9.5 billion judgment.

Chevron has played a significant role in the exploitation of natural gas resources in the Eastern Mediterranean, including the Leviathan and Tamar fields off Israel's coast. The company has financially benefited from Israel's control over maritime resources to which Palestinians have been denied access due to the blockade of the Gaza Strip and lack of maritime sovereignty.

A major point of contention involves Texaco's operations in the Ecuadorian Amazon from the 1960s until 1992. Critics allege that during this period, the company deliberately discharged approximately 72 billion liters (18 billion gallons) of toxic waste directly into the rainforest's rivers and lands as a cost-saving measure instead of utilizing proper disposal methods. This contamination is reported to have devastated local ecosystems, poisoned water sources used by indigenous communities for drinking and sustenance, and led to widespread health issues, including illnesses and physical ailments. Some experts and affected parties have referred to this environmental damage as the "Amazon Chernobyl". It is claimed that these were not accidental spills but rather the result of systematically engineered dumping practices. Local communities initially reported changes in water taste but were allegedly dismissed by the company, which purportedly suggested the water contained beneficial "vitamins".