Chevron Corp., based in California since the days of kerosene lamps, is moving headquarters to Texas after years of fighting Golden State officials over strict environmental policies and costly regulations.
The move announced Friday will end the company’s 145 years of being based in the most populous US state. The shift prompted Texas Governor Greg Abbott to welcome Chevron to its “true home,” while a spokesperson for his California counterpart Gavin Newsom dismissed it as a “logical culmination” of a years-long transition by the oil giant.
Chevron already had slashed new investments in California refining, citing “adversarial” government policies in a state that 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.
Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth pushed back on suggestions that the relocation is being driven by politics, saying “it’s really to be closer to the core epicenter of our industry.”
“We’ve had some policy differences with California,” Wirth said during a Bloomberg Television interview. “But this isn’t a move about politics. It’s a move about what’s good for our company to compete and perform.”
The announcement came as Chevron posted disappointing second-quarter results and outlined a shake-up in the senior leadership ranks apparently aimed at improving results.
Texas is home to a vast network of resources key to Chevron’s business, from equipment vendors to universities that it taps for research and recruiting talent, Wirth noted.
“Houston is the energy capital of the world,” he said. “It’s a natural place for companies in our industry to have their home office and headquarters.”
Chevron joins a long list of California emigres that includes Oracle Corp., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Tesla Inc. While the migration among former Silicon Valley tech giants has been largely driven by tax and and cost-of-living considerations, Chevron has been at loggerheads with state leaders over increasingly tough fossil-fuel rules.
Newsom ran for reelection in 2022 promising to wage war on Big Oil, calling for a special legislative session and asking lawmakers to impose a “price gouging” tax on oil companies. That was later watered down to a task force studying excess profit margins.