Don’t cry for Chevron

Jul 23, 2025 Editorial, News

Kaieteur News – According to an expert analyst from the Running Point Capital, Chevron Corporation lost close to US$10B due to the ExxonMobil-inspired foot dragging that held its close competitor at bay for over a year.

Though US$10B is not a sum to laugh about, its loss is sure to bruise even as big an oil player as Chevron, there is one thing that we recommend to all our readers. No Guyanese should shed a single tear for Chevron, because in the long run the new arrival in Guyana’s prized oil and gas fields will do more than recover those billions. Given a little time to get acclimatized to Guyana, and get its act streamlined, and Chevron stands to make multiples of that approximately US$10B that Michael Ashby, chief investment officer of Running Point Capital calculated the American oil major lost.

Chevron is currently in second place in the ranks of U.S. oil producers with a market capitalization that is just over half of ExxonMobil’s. It is not ExxonMobil by any standards, but it is not the Hess Corporation that it bought lock, stock, and barrel, and whose stake in Guyana’s Stabroek Block it now owns. This could explain why ExxonMobil spent so much time and energy, in a losing effort, to block and frustrate Chevron from participating in the world-class Stabroek Block.

In Chevron, ExxonMobil didn’t see a pushover in the mold of the Hess Corporation, but a competitor, even an unwelcomed challenger. It is a repeat of that old standard that two scorpions are not too happy when they find themselves sharing the same bottle. The issue of who is going to eat whom remains to be seen, but that is not the business of Guyanese. Guyanese have bigger concerns on their minds, of which the fight for the reins of national office is taking precedence over all other considerations.

In the short-term, Chevron is forced to eat the US$10B that could have been, if only ExxonMobil was big enough to allow a sister American oil company to share in the Stabroek Block. Though bystanders in that fight, Guyanese are given a close-up lesson on the ruthlessness of capitalism in general, and the cutthroat nature of the oil business, specifically. Chevron is a huge company, and will get over its temporary setback, sponsored by ExxonMobil.

So, Guyanese shouldn’t cry for the smaller partner, the new arrival. Chevron knows its way, and is nimble enough, to get going in the shortest time in Guyana’s offshore oilfields. Again, it is why Guyanese are better advised to save their tears for a worthier object. But there is a still larger reason why Guyanese shouldn’t look sympathetically at Chevron. It is here to make money in the manner of a mint from the patrimony of Guyanese, and it will do so in the blink of an eye, right next to ExxonMobil. The US$10B that Chevron didn’t make because it lost over a year is part of its welcome to Guyana greeting card, compliments of ExxonMobil. Like John Hess, CEO of the now departed Hess Corporation, Chevron’s CEO, Michael Wirth, will learn how to get along with ExxonMobil’s warriors and make a big haul out of Guyana. Chevron will be familiar with the ropes here before long, and how to position its operations to get its Guyana profit machine running. There is a way that financial statements are built, and ExxonMobil, Hess of the past, and China National Offshore Corporation have all shown themselves expert at that craft. This is the exclusive accounting club that Chevron is now joining, and which will make it forget that US$10B that slipped through its grasp, because ExxonMobil wants all of the Stabroek Block under its control.

Considering that it is a billion-dollar business that’s involved, both ExxonMobil and Chevron will learn to bury the hatchet, work together, march in lockstep, and speak in harmony. Profits are the first and only priorities of oil companies, and the larger the cash flows are, the quicker that warring parties find ways to get along. Guyana is prostrate under the boot of these predators that sell themselves as partners. So, we repeat that earlier counsel: don’t cry for Chevron, Guyanese. Cry for Guyana.

Discover more from Kaieteur News

Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.

Chevron, Editorial, Guyana Oil, Oil and Gas

Latest News