I took the package in 2016, so I have not really been watching the industry news carefully of late. I noted some reasonable finds by Exxon the last few years and some smaller stuff by a few of the other mid to large oil companies. I don’t remember anything from Chevron recently: is she now just an asset developer or is there still a major exploration budget? Does this reflect peak oil or just a investment pull back. From the ad campaigns I am left wondering if Chevron’s future is in cow manure, but maybe I am not seeing the whole picture.
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Are you sh-----g me, Chevron’s only “significant discovery” in recent memory is a ENI step out? WTF is it exploration doing between diversity moments?
Eni makes a significant discovery offshore Egypt, while our Egypt team, infused with CTC wunderkind, continues to find nothing.
https://worldoil.com/news/2023/1/16/eni-makes-significant-gas-discovery-offshore-egypt/
Nargis is a “significant” discovery of gas.
As a certain Exploration GM is fond of saying "I'm not paid to find it, just to look for it."
Yes! Read the news. Nargis is a “significant” discovery.
@4dwj, exactly. MW only wants 'certain' oil. Permian (at least for a couple more years), and acquisitions.
Finding oil is done by risk takers. There are no risk takers in MW's Chevron.
@2lbb I was being facetious. I agree, by 2030 Permian will be an after-thought.
1ikz: I thought the Permian was projected to start to decline within a decade.
Ballymoor is marginal in size and economic only via tie-back to another facility. Hardly a victory lap for exploration. None of our discoveries or anyone else's in the Gulf are signficant in size. Competitors discoveries elsewhere are multi-FPSO size.
I found oil this morning. I discovered a small pool of it under my car. Damn those incompetents at Jiffy Lube. After work today, I’m taking my car back for them. I’m sure they neglected to put a new crush washer on before tightening the oil pan bolt.
OP, you have to understand Chevron exploration: 1) Virtually all Chevron geophysicists just write computer programs, they couldn't recognize oil even if you handed them a can of Mobil-1. 2) The vast majority of Chevron geologists spend their entire careers developing prospects which never get drilled. 3) International exploration is just a pass-through for high-pots, they haven't found a drop of oil in decades (look at our once high-profile, now low-profile Egypt, Mexico, Brazil efforts). 4) By design, no one in CTC has ever worked in an exploration team. Mostly, they just describe rocks. 5) There's no one in exploration management who has ever had a significant technical role in an economic discovery. Since Chevron hasn't had a significant discovery since, what, Ballymore? (a Boomer discovery), you now have an entire generation of grossly inexperienced explorers without any role models. Chevron has to rely on buying someone else's reserves about every 8 years. Gulf, Texaco, Unocal, Atlas, Noble. Next one should be around 2028. I'm guessing Hess with their Guyana reserves.
Except for a brief period +/- 2005, Chevron has never been an effective exploration company. All those oil finders are long gone (Chevron gave them a plaque, other companies gave them $$$$$), MW and SR have been bamboozled into believing there's no need to explore when you have the Permian, Australia, and Tengiz.
Why bother exploring, when the Permian is going to supply oil for the next 100 years?
Chevron has had zero exploration success (unless you re-cast Permian development as 'exploration') since Boomers left the company (OP is obviously one of those). I remember a definite change of philosophy 2015-2020 from 'our sole job is to deliver resources to the Company' to 'let's spend our time on diversity, networks, and branding campaigns'. It didn't help that Exploration management went from experienced professionals to diversity candidates and clueless high-pot 'advisors'. Commensurate with all that is that the exploration budget has shrunk to being ineffective.
You can spend your whole career at Chevron drinking the Kool aid and being part of the human energy propaganda and when you retire, you realize you have no meaningful relationships with anyone at the company other than a bunch of greedy selfish individuals who you wonder how they look at themselves in the mirror each morning
Chevron exploration can not find salt water in the ocean, what else do you expect them to find? CVX at this point to is only a banner for D&I and fancy woke phrases.
We’ve pretty much missed everything exploration wise. Missed Guyana, missed East Africa, missed Eastern Mediterranean - got in via Noble acquisition. Which sums it up really, CVX has been much more successful buying in than exploring. Nothing wrong with that strategy of course. XOM used to be like that too but I guess you have to get lucky eventually.
Most chevron exploration success in last 20 years was in Australia, which was shooting fish in a barrel and of questionable value given the development costs there.
If you took the package in 2016, why are you checking in on a layoff forum? You remind me of one of those guys who devoted their lives to a company and have nothing else to do.