Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

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Mike Wirth: Yes. So, it can move in any given year, Jeanine for a whole host of reasons, right? Prices, FID decisions, portfolio actions that we take to either sell or buy. And so, the one-year number is one that will move around. The longer cycle numbers, the one that you ought to pay attention to. Remember also, as we have this large position in the Permian we continue to develop. We can only book five years forward. And so, each year, we’ll produce out of the unconventional assets, and we’ll add another year’s worth of reserves on the back end of that. And so, if you were to look at the Permian unconstrained by that, you’d have a very different view. This year, we had some additions in the Permian and Israel and Canada and the Gulf of Mexico, as Pierre mentioned, the largest net reduction this year were Kazakhstan due to the contract terms and the effect of higher prices.

If you were to actually adjust that out, so we mentioned 100 million barrels where the price effect this year would be — think of it as 107% ex the price effect. And so, I do think over time, we intend to be in this business for quite a while and 100% is a number that you ought to expect to see that or greater over time. But in any given year or any short number of years, you might see something looks a little bit different.

Operator: We’ll take our next question from Devin McDermott with Morgan Stanley.

Devin McDermott: Hey good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, Roderick, I wanted to echo Jeanine, congrats on the new role and thank you for all the help over the years and great working with you. So I wanted to focus in on upstream. And it’s good to see the continued progress on TCO and exciting to be getting close to the finish line on the expansion project there. You noted that WPMP is on track for commissioning and start-up later this year. I just wanted to first confirm that the second part of that expansion, FGP is still on track for ’24. And then just stepping back, could you just walk us through your latest expectations to the impacts on both TCO production, CapEx and then also affiliate dividends as these projects come online. Trying to get a sense of the changes in ’24 versus ’23? And then also, how you think about the run rate on both volumes and spending for that affiliate post FGP.

Mike Wirth: Yes. Devin, I’ll talk to the project and let Pierre talk a little bit to the financials. First of all, no change to cost or schedule guidance. WPMP is trending toward a beginning start-up by the end of this year. We’ve got a lot of work done. We’ve got a new power grid up and running and this was a power grid built back in the Soviet days. The control room is up and running, where everything comes into one central control room. All the production on gas injection wells are done, the gas injection facility is now in early commissioning. In just the next few days, we’ll tie in the fuel gas system to the first gas turbine generator, which is really an important milestone to test the first of the three GTGs, begin the process of powering up electrical generation capacity and commissioning boilers, steam and other utilities.

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