Chevron Expands Houston Presence with Headquarters Relocation

Chevron Corporation, the second-largest integrated energy company headquartered in the U.S., recently announced the relocation of its headquarters from San Ramon, Calif., to Houston, Texas. The decision to move was made for several reasons, one of which is to best support its increasing operations in the greater Gulf of Mexico region.

While the company expects it may take several years for all corporate functions to migrate from California, Chevron already has a significant presence in the Bayou City. In fact, Houston is home to Chevron’s largest employee base with roughly 7,000 employees.

Known as the Human Energy Company, Chevron’s vision is to be the most admired global energy company for its people, partnership and performance.  Chevron has been a proud member of the Houston community for more than a century. The company is actively involved in numerous community trade organizations, including the Greater Houston Port Bureau.

Chevron also invests in programs to help Houstonians, focusing on STEM education, food and housing security, the environment and emergency response. It is the annual sponsor of the Chevron Houston Marathon with over 33,000 runners and the Chevron Championship, one of the LPGA’s five major championships, held annually in The Woodlands. Chevron is also actively engaged with regional charitable organizations such as the Gulf of Mexico Alliance, the Houston International Seafarers’ Center, Houston Maritime Center and Museum, and local schools. Recently, Chevron Shipping and Houston Independent School District (“HISD”) announced a public-private partnership with Stephen F. Austin High School’s maritime studies program in East Houston.  Under the partnership, Chevron Shipping will provide the students in this HISD maritime flagship with the expertise, mentorship, and resources needed to enter a variety of rewarding careers in the maritime and energy industry.  

Chevron Shipping Company

Chevron Shipping Company alone has robust maritime activities throughout the U.S. Gulf Coast. Since the start of 2024, more than 500 Chevron owned, operated, or chartered vessels have transited crude, clean and dirty petroleum products, renewable diesel, lubricants, and chemicals throughout the Gulf Coast - more than 200 of these in the Houston Ship Channel. Chevron Shipping also has some of its eight operated very large crude carriers loading crude oil out of Corpus Christi.

In addition, Chevron’s Jones Act compliant U.S.-flagged tankers continue to support regular transits of products from Pascagoula, Miss., to Florida’s east and west coasts, and transits of renewable diesel from locations in the Gulf to various ports in California. Chevron’s operated fleet currently stands at 29 oil tanker and gas carriers, with six new gas carriers on order in part to support Chevron’s growing gas business in the Gulf coast. 

Oil & Gas Producing Wells

But the journey of Chevron’s products begins with its oil and gas producing wells, some of which are in or around Texas’ rich onshore and offshore basins. Chevron has six operating facilities currently producing in the Gulf of Mexico, one of the lowest carbon intensity oil and gas basins in the world. Chevron’s operated and non-operated facilities in the Gulf are expected to produce a combined 300,000 net barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2026. In September, Chevron announced the start of oil and natural gas production from the Anchor project in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico. Onshore, Chevron is among the largest net acreage leaseholders and producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas. Operations in the Permian date to 1920, and total net production has surpassed 5 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

Chevron Refineries

Chevron also operates five refineries in the U.S. that have the combined capacity to process more than 1.0 million barrels of oil per day and produce fuels, base oils and other products. Two of these refineries are on the Gulf Coast. 

The largest in the Gulf is Chevron's Pascagoula Refinery which can process approximately 369,000 barrels per day of crude oil - an amount equivalent to the size of a football field covered to a depth of 41 feet.

The company’s other refinery sits along the Houston Ship Channel in Pasadena. It was built in the early days of exploration and refining in southeast Texas and acquired by Chevron in 2019.

In addition to these two refineries processing traditional crude oil, there are other more niche Chevron production facilities throughout the Gulf Coast.  The first is Chevron Oak Point manufacturing plant, located south of New Orleans, La., in Belle Chasse along the Mississippi River with deepwater shipping access. The second niche operation is the Chevron Geismar renewable diesel production facility, also located in southern Louisiana along the Mississippi River. The company’s Geismar facility was the first renewable diesel production facility in the U.S. and was acquired by Chevron in 2022 as part of its purchase of Renewable Energy Group.  Geismar produces approximately 75 million gallons of high-quality renewable diesel, renewable naphtha, renewable propane, and renewable gasoline annually.  The facility is nearing the completion of a substantial improvement and expansion project that will take total site production capacity to 340 million gallons per year.

Research & Development

One of Chevron’s two research and development facilities is located at Briarpark, Houston, where they are accelerating progress to power our world today and build the lower carbon energy system of the future. This center and Chevron’s New Energies ongoing research is associated with carbon capture utilization and storage, geothermal, hydrogen, renewables, and carbon offsets. One such project is the Bayou Bend carbon capture and sequestration project located in Chambers and Jefferson Counties along the Texas Gulf Coast.  Once in full operation, the project will be one of the largest carbon storage projects in the U.S., with 140,000 acres of dedicated sequestration solutions across a broad region of the Gulf Coast, from Houston to Orange and into western Louisiana.

And at the end of the energy value chain, and likely the most recognizable aspect of Chevron, are the more than 8,000 Chevron and Texaco retail stations across the U.S., including 1,600 stations throughout Texas.

Chevron is also one of the world’s top producers of commodity petrochemicals, through its joint venture Chevron Phillips Chemical (“CPChem”) Company based in The Woodlands. Chevron’s operations, partnership, and contributions to the area provide energy that enables human progress around the world.

About the Author

Jason Smith