LNG

Chevron Corp., the US oil and gas major with additional successful LNG plants in Australia and in Africa and a pipeline gas supply business in the Middle East, has overhauled its corporate structure and senior executive team to strengthen portfolio operations.

Chevron, based in San Ramon in California, said that from October 2022 the company would consolidate its Upstream, Midstream and Downstream business segments under a new executive vice president for Oil, Products & Gas, who will oversee the full value chain.

As part of this change, the company is consolidating into two Upstream regions, Americas Exploration & Production and International Exploration & Production.

The company is also organizing its Strategy & Sustainability, Corporate Affairs and Business Development functions under a new executive vice president for Strategy, Policy & Development.

“The changes build on the company’s enterprise-wide transformation in 2020, which has produced improved operational and financial results,” said Chevron.

Chevron believes the new leadership structure will enable a more integrated approach to capital allocation, asset class excellence and value-chain optimization, and “facilitate more effective external engagement and business development” impacts.

Progress

“We’ve made significant progress over the last two years, and these changes position us to further enhance execution across all aspects of our business as the energy system evolves,” said Mike Wirth, Chevron’s Chairman and Chief Executive.

“It will also bring strategy, policy and business development into tighter alignment as we focus on leveraging our strengths to deliver lower carbon energy to a growing world,” stated Wirth.

The company made the following personnel appointments, effective October 1, 2022:

Mark Nelson was named executive vice president, Strategy, Policy & Development and Nigel Hearne is the new executive vice president, Oil, Products & Gas. Nelson and Hearne will report to Wirth in their new roles.

Clay Neff is the new president, International Exploration & Production; Bruce Niemeyer was named president, Americas Exploration & Production; and Balaji Krishnamurthy is taking the vice president role for Chevron Strategy & Sustainability.

LNG operations

Chevron’s major LNG activities are as the operator of three plants, Gorgon LNG and Wheatstone LNG in Western Australia and Angola LNG in southwest Africa.

Additionally, Chevron took over natural gas fields and assets offshore Israel when it acquired Noble Energy.

The company made additional personnel announcements regarding other senior executives.

Jay Johnson, executive vice president, Upstream, was named executive vice president, senior advisor, effective October 1, 2022, and will support the transition until January 31, 2023.

Johnson has more than 41 years of service to the company.

Retirees

Jay Pryor, vice president, Chevron Business Development, will retire after more than 43 years of service to the company, effective July 29, 2022.

Steve Green, president, Chevron North America Exploration & Production, will also retire after more than 24 years of service to the company and its predecessors, effective September 30, 2022.

“I’m confident that our new team will continue to effectively lead the company in delivering the affordable, reliable and ever-cleaner energy that enables human progress,” said Wirth.

Wirth stated that he especially thanked Jay Johnson, Jay Pryor and Steve Green for all they’ve done for Chevron, the industry and the company's employees over the course of their careers.

“Each of them exemplifies the finest qualities of character, integrity and excellence, and their influence will be felt for many decades still to come,” stated Wirth. 

Noble Energy, the US company with stakes in the Leviathan and Tamar natural gas fields in the East Mediterranean offshore Israel, said it had doubled the volumes of its deals for sales to Dolphinus Holdings of Egypt and extended the contract terms.

Noble Energy and the Israeli Delek Group, owners of the huge Leviathan natural gas field in the East Mediterranean, have signed agreements with Golar LNG and Belgian shipping company Exmar to carry out engineering studies for a possible floating LNG production and export venture offshore Israel.

Delek Group of Israel is discussing liquefied natural gas marketing possibilities for the giant Leviathan field in the Eastern Mediterranean currently under development and set to come on stream in 2020.

Delek Drilling is the largest shareholder in the Leviathan field and is looking into several options for some of the 22 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in the field that has not already been sold to pipeline customers in Israel and Jordan.

These include Delek sending volumes by an existing pipeline to Egypt for domestic use or as feed-gas for one of Egypt’s LNG export plants at Damietta or Idku, or setting up its own floating LNG infrastructure.

The Israeli company owns more than 45 percent of the Leviathan field while US company Noble Energy is the operator with just short of 40 percent. The balance is held by  stock exchange shareholders.

Firm pipeline supply agreements have already been signed for the Leviathan project with buyers such as Jordan’s National Electric Power Company, set to take 45 billion cubic metres in a deal lasting at least 15 years.

Another Leviathan supply deal has been signed by Israeli company Edeltech, which is buying the gas for power plants it owns with Turkish partner Zorlu Energy in Ashdod and Mishor Rotem.

Delek and Noble have also signed letters of intent to supply Leviathan natural gas to customers in Egypt such as Dolphinus Holdings and the operator of the Idku LNG export plant, now Royal Dutch Shell.

The Israeli media has also reported that ExxonMobil was interested in setting up a floating LNG option for the Leviathan project partners to join. The reports explained that while talks with ExxonMobil had taken place, it was too early to say if any agreement was likely.

ExxonMobil and Middle East LNG partner Qatar Petroleum have also recently made a large natural gas discovery in the East Med offshore Cyprus.

The ExxonMobil-QP discovery is at the Glaucus-1 well located in their exploration Block 10 in Cypriot waters.

Based on preliminary estimates the ExxonMobil resources are between 5 Tcf and 8 Tcf, enough feed-gas for a small-scale FLNG project.

Another possibility for the Israelis and Noble is transporting some Leviathan gas volumes to the Egyptian Idku LNG export plant.

Idku is east of the city of Alexandria and first came on stream in 2005 and has capacity to ship up to 7.2 million tonnes per annum from two liquefaction Trains. It also has two storage tanks with a combined capacity of 280,000 cubic metres.

Idku is now operated by Shell and has been on stream again since 2017 as new Egyptian discoveries turned a natural gas deficit into a surplus. Shell acquired its Idku stake when it completed the takeover of BG Group in 2016.

Egypt’s second LNG export plant at Damietta is still idle, but the resolution of a legal dispute between the owners and the Egyptian government has now been resolved.

The facility has capacity of 5.5 MTPA of output and has two storage tanks each of 150,000 cubic metres capacity.

Damietta is owned by Union Fenosa Gas, a joint venture between Spain’s Gas Natural, now known as Naturgy, and Italian energy company Eni. They hold 80 percent of the shares and the remaining 20 percent belongs to the Egyptian government.

Noble Energy, the US exploration and production company with overseas interests in the East Mediterranean and West Africa, has approved the Alen natural gas development offshore Equatorial Guinea to provide feed-gas for the LNG export plant.

Noble Energy, the US exploration and production company with stakes in two natural gas fields offshore Israel with Israeli partners, has signed agreements to sell significant quantities of East Mediterranean natural gas to Egypt for up to $14 billion over 10 years.

Noble Energy, the US company with East Mediterranean natural gas assets, said it signed a definitive agreement to sell a 7.5 percent working interest in the Tamar field, offshore Israel, for around $800 million, including $560M in cash.

Delek Group, the Israeli company focusing on the energy sector, said it expected to sell natural gas to Egypt in the future from its Tamar and Leviathan gas field projects in the East Mediterranean as Egyptian needs outstrip its supplies.

Delek Group of Israel, the main shareholder with Noble Energy of the US of the Leviathan and Tamar natural gas fields in the Eastern Mediterranean, boosted second-quarter revenues by over 14 percent with sales to Israel and Jordan that will eventually lessen Jordanian LNG requirements.

Lebanon plans to award exploration and production licences in five offshore blocks in the East Mediterranean by November 15 this year in the Middle East country’s first attempt at establishing a domestic oil and gas industry to secure resource revenue and future infrastructure for LNG and gas-fired power.