By Kevin Crowley | Bloomberg
Chevron Corp. is relocating headquarters to Houston from California after repeatedly warning that the Golden State’s regulatory regime was making it a tough place to do business.
The move announced Friday will end the company’s more than 140 years of being based in the largest US state and comes amid a shake-up in senior leadership ranks apparently aimed at improving results.
Chevron already had slashed new investments in California refining, citing “adversarial” government policies in a state which has some of the most stringent environmental rules in the US. In January, refining executive Andy Walz warned that the state was playing a “dangerous game” with climate rules that threatened to spike gasoline prices.
Separately, Chevron missed second-quarter profit estimates, heaping pressure on Wirth to prevail in his $53 billion effort to acquire Hess Corp. Chevron shares fell as much as 3% in pre-market trading.
Three senior executives are departing Chevron, including oil-production chief Nigel Hearne and Colin Parfitt, who oversees pipeline and shipping businesses.
Hearne, 56, will see his duties handed over to Vice Chairman Mike Nelson, a key lieutenant of Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth. Parfitt’s replacement is Walz.
The leadership changes come just months after former Chief Financial Officer Pierre Breber issued a stern warning to employees to improve performance and results. The rebuke followed a year of dismal results stemming from refinery disruptions, weaker-than-expected oil production in the Permian Basin, and cost overruns and delays at a massive project in Kazakhstan.
Breber stepped down in March.