CVX - Chevron Corporation

Oil Expert: 'I'm extremely pessimistic on the future of Aramco'

Saudi Aramco's shares soared after the world’s largest IPO debuted on the Riyadh stock exchange. The Schork Report editor Stephen Schork joins Yahoo Finance’s Zack Guzman, Sibile Marcellus and Clearnomics Founder & CEO James Liu on YFi PM to discuss.

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  Aramco's historic day as largest IPO begins trading

  Yahoo Finance Video
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  Chevron takes $10B hit, will other oil companies follow?

  Yahoo Finance Video

Why Chevron's heading for the exit in Appalachia

CEO told CNBC.com the assets "simply don't compete as well for our investment dollar as others do."

Developer rethinks plans for 54-acre site in Natomas along I-5

A decade after a retail and office center was approved for land along Interstate 5 in Natomas, the owner wants to change tracks to a different kind of project.

Chevron Ushers in Oil’s Era of the Sober-Major

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Along with never invading Russia or getting into a Twitter argument, we can add another golden rule — this one specifically for U.S. oil majors: Never buy a shale-gas business.Chevron Corp.’s $10-11 billion impairment, announced late Tuesday, relates mostly to the Appalachian gas assets it picked up in 2011’s $4.9 billion acquisition of Atlas Energy Inc. Back then, the Permian basin was not a regular topic on the business channels, nor was it a central pillar of Chevron’s spending plans. But now it is, and simultaneously plowing billions into a Permian oil business that spits out gas essentially for free while running a dry-gas business in the Marcellus shale is like flooring it with the parking brake on.Chevron joins the ranks of Exxon Mobil Corp. — which paid $35 billion for XTO Energy Inc. less than a year before the Atlas deal and has been haunted by it ever since — and ConocoPhillips, which bought Rockies gas producer Burlington Resources Inc. way back in 2006 for $36 billion and then wrote most of that off in 2008.But there is far more to this than just mistimed forays into the graveyard of optimism that is the U.S. natural gas market — and not just for Chevron.Big Oil just had a forgettable earnings season. Chevron announced cost overruns on the giant Tengiz expansion project in Kazakhstan. Exxon continued borrowing to cover its dividend. Across the pond, BP Plc and Royal Dutch Shell Plc flubbed resetting expectations on dividends and buybacks. What ties all of these together are weak returns on capital. Chevron’s problems in Kazakhstan are echoed in its impairment of another asset, the Big Foot field in the Gulf of Mexico. This is another mega-project that went awry and, in an era when producers can no longer count on an oil upswing to save the economics, is found wanting. Chevron is also ditching the Kitimat LNG project in Canada that it bought into in 2013.All this is a particularly sore spot for Chevron given its problems with Australian liquefied natural gas mega-projects earlier this decade. CEO Mike Wirth’s decision to clear the decks seems intended in part to signal that, unlike the experience of his predecessor with Australian LNG development, he will drop big assets that don’t make the cut financially.Discovering, financing and developing mega-projects is why the supermajors were created at the end of the 1990s. Today, when investors are interested at all, they’re leery of capital outlays, aware the outlook for oil and gas markets is challenged in fundamental ways. So tying up money in big, risky, multi-year ventures is a good way to crush your stock price.Wirth isn’t abandoning conventional development; Big Foot aside, the Gulf Of Mexico has several new projects in the pipeline, for example. But to offset the drag on returns from the extra spending at Tengiz, he must streamline the rest of the portfolio. This is the story of the sector writ large. “Too much capital is chasing too few opportunities,” as Doug Terreson of Evercore ISI puts it. Conoco, which remade itself radically after the Burlington debacle, set the tone with its recent analyst day, emphasizing the need to get the industry’s long-standing spending habits under control and focus on returns to win back investors who are free to put their money into other sectors. Chevron’s write-offs and shareholder payouts (38% of cash from operations over the past 12 months) are of a piece with this. While the company has laid out guidance for production to grow by 3% to 4% a year, that is very much subject to the returns on offer. Capital intensity — as in, shrinking it — is what counts.Chevron’s move throws the spotlight especially on big rival Exxon. While Exxon has taken some impairment against its U.S. gas assets, that represented a small fraction of the XTO purchase. Exxon also sticks out right now for its giant capex budget (bigger than Chevron’s by more than half), leaving no room for buybacks or even to fully cover its dividend.In the first decade of the supermajors, when peak oil supply was a thing, big projects with big budgets to match were something to boast about. As the second decade draws to an end, only the leanest operators will survive. Chevron won’t be the last oil major to rip off the band-aid, just as we haven’t yet seen the full extent of the inevitable restructurings and consolidation among the smaller E&P companies. On this front, there’s another golden rule: Better to get it done sooner rather than later. To contact the author of this story: Liam Denning at ldenning1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Gongloff at mgongloff1@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy, mining and commodities. He previously was editor of the Wall Street Journal's Heard on the Street column and wrote for the Financial Times' Lex column. He was also an investment banker.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

November Core CPI Data Meets Expectation

November Core CPI Data Meets Expectation.

November CPI +0.3%, Core +0.2%; Plus Fed News

An inflation rate of 2.1% will send no one running for the hills; we might even look at these figures as somewhat "Goldilocks" \-- not too hot, not too cold.

Chevron charge points to billions more in gas writedowns - analysts

Oil and gas producers could wipe billions of dollars more off the value of U.S. natural gas assets in the months ahead, analysts said on Wednesday, after Chevron Corp became the fourth oil major to slash its estimates for sector values. A long, steady increase in U.S. gas production – much of it a byproduct of the shale oil boom – has pushed prices for the fuel heading toward a 25-year low and a number of analysts have already forecast that the oversupply will worsen in 2020. Prior to Chevron's impairment, BP PLC, Repsol SA and Equinor ASA had written down billions worth of North American shale assets in recent months.

Stocks - Gamestop, American Eagle, Chevron Slump Premarket

Investing.com -- Stocks in focus in premarket trade on Wednesday, 11th December.

Where to Buy Chevron Should Shares Dip

Chevron stock is under pressure Wednesday, down almost 1%. Further, the decline in oil prices is quickly sapping the gains the commodity has seen in recent trading after OPEC negotiated production cuts in an effort to boost prices. In any regard, the decline in oil prices is hurting energy stocks, while Chevron's massive writedown isn't doing it any favors either.

Chevron to Take $11 Billion Writedown Amid Weak Gas Prices

(Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp. expects to write down as much as $11 billion in the fourth quarter, more than half of it from its Appalachia natural gas assets after a slump in prices.The U.S. oil major is considering the sale of shale-gas holdings, according to a statement Tuesday. The company said separately it intends to exit its stake in the Kitimat liquefied natural gas project in Canada. And Chevron also plans to keep its 2020 capital budget at $20 billion, the third consecutive year it hasn’t boosted spending.The company’s actions come from a chief executive officer, Mike Wirth, whose mantra has been capital discipline. Wirth earlier this year earned $1 billion for the company by walking away from a bidding war for Anadarko Petroleum Corp. San Ramon, California-based Chevron is the best performer among the five Western oil majors this year, but it has faced mounting costs at its Tengiz project in Kazakhstan.“The Appalachia writedown should be baked in, but the others are incrementally negative” for the stock, said Muhammed Ghulam, a Houston-based analyst at Raymond James & Associates. “I would expect most companies to have to write down gas assets this year.”Chevron follows Schlumberger Ltd. and Repsol SA in ascribing a lower value to their assets at a time when the growing adoption of cleaner energy stokes speculation that demand for fossil fuels may peak in a few years, while supplies keep rising. The oil-services giant posted a $12.7 billion writedown in October, while the Spanish producer took $5.3 billion off its balance sheet last week.Chevron’s shares dropped 0.5% to $117.35 at 8:22 a.m. in pre-market trading in New York. They are up about 8% for the year.The gas glut is particularly pronounced in North America where shale production is flooding local markets. Wirth said his decision to walk away from certain gas assets illustrates the company’s discipline in protecting shareholder funds.“The best use of our capital is investing in our most advantaged assets,” Wirth said in the statement. “With capital discipline and a conservative outlook comes the responsibility to make the tough choices necessary to deliver higher cash returns to our shareholders over the long term.”Wirth has made crude production from the Permian Basin a centerpiece of his global strategy, with a budget of $4 billion for the shale play next year. The giant Tengiz joint venture in the Caspian Sea, whose total cost has surged to about $45 billion, will receive $3.75 billion from Chevron in 2020.What Bloomberg Intelligence Says“Tengiz project overruns raised questions about Chevron’s commitment to capital discipline, but plans to shelve or divest Appalachia and Kitimat LNG show the company will target returns over resources.”\--Fernando Valle, analyst\--Click here to read the researchU.S. natural gas futures prices have slumped this year amid a supply glut, and are now averaging about $2.54 per million British thermal units. If it finishes the year at that level, it’ll be the lowest average price since 1999.The move to write down Appalachian gas is likely to put pressure on other producers in the region to do the same. Newly built gas export terminals along the U.S. Gulf Coast have so far failed to absorb the excess supply.Chevron held more than 750,000 net acres in the Marcellus and Utica shale formations, which stretch from West Virginia to Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to a 2017 fact sheet on its website. The writedown also encompasses the Big Foot oil platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico, which began producing last year.(Updates with Kitimat stake sale plan in second paragraph)To contact the reporter on this story: Kevin Crowley in Houston at kcrowley1@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Simon Casey at scasey4@bloomberg.net, Carlos CaminadaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.

Where Will Chevron (CVX) Spend the Bulk of Its 2020 Capex?

Chevron's (CVX) projected organic capex worth $20 billion for 2020 will see no change for the third consecutive year while maintaining its capital discipline through the cycle.

Stuck in a Tough Spot, Chevron Drills Down Strategy

Company takes on challenges to cut risk and raise return, and now the technical picture shows it's primed for a quick $5 to $7 move over the next few weeks.