About Bruce Niemeyer
Bruce Niemeyer, as Chevron’s vice president of strategy and sustainability in 2021, discussed the company’s approach to scaling carbon capture and storage (CCS) and low-carbon technologies. He stated that Chevron has the “staying power” to invest in long-term projects like CCS, citing the Gorgon project in Australia as an example. Niemeyer described the Mendota project in California, which he said would use waste biomass from almond trees to generate electricity and permanently sequester captured carbon underground, creating negative emissions. He noted that the biggest technical challenges for Mendota were the gasifier’s ability to process waste biomass and the use of turbines not previously used to capture 100% of carbon dioxide at scale. Niemeyer also said that policy support, such as California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard and the federal 45Q tax credit, was essential for making such projects economically feasible.
Niemeyer emphasized that carbon capture is “important to the future” and that scaling CCS from 40 million tons per year to five to ten gigatons by 2050 would require a “hundred-fold scale-up.” He stated that the most effective carbon capture technologies currently focus on concentrated CO2 streams, while direct air capture remains a longer-term challenge due to energy and cost requirements. Niemeyer noted that Chevron manages carbon pricing risk and volatility through internal models that forecast carbon prices regionally and incorporate them into project evaluations. He also highlighted collaboration with Schlumberger and Microsoft on cloud-based digital workflows to improve efficiency in oil and gas and carbon capture projects.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Bruce Niemeyer's recent appearances.
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Transcript (17 segments)
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Narrator0:00
Quarter, and the year. That said, one company is optimistic it can return to growth in the years ahead with that. Let's get to Brian Sullivan at the Gas Tech Conference in Houston with a special guest. Hey, Brian.
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Brian Sullivan0:12
Thank you very much. That special guest is CEO and chair of Chevron, Mike Wirth.
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Mike Wirth0:19
Good to be here.
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Brian Sullivan0:19
Good time to be here. A lot of people have been confused about oil and gas price. Gas low forever, oil prices below 70. Not today, but they bounced back. How does Chevron, it's been a difficult year for investors and shareholders and oil and gas companies, how does Chevron return to growth and return to growth from the Chevron equity as well?
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Mike Wirth0:43
We look at the long term. The near term price has an influence on near term financials, but it really doesn't affect growth investments for the future. We've got strong momentum building in our traditional business with a number of growth drivers here in the US, also overseas. New energy business, lower carbon business, project startups this year and next year all underpin strong financial growth over the next several years of 10% annual growth in free cash flow supports a dividend yielding 4.5%, three times the S&P, strong and consistent share repurchase program and a commitment to return cash to shareholders which gets to the equity value and the proposition for investors.
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Brian Sullivan1:24
You know, there's this, I think for the first time ever or in a long time, traders are net short oil contracts and believe that oil is down, bearishness in oil is unbelievable right now. The idea there's going to be too much oil in the world to meet demand, especially if OPEC comes back online by adding more barrels over the next year or so. Do you have a view as to where the price of crude is going to go the next two to five years, Mike?
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Mike Wirth1:51
We have planning scenarios, and so we look at different scenarios. A lot of this is dependent on the fundamentals. Supply has been pretty strong. We've seen growth in supply primarily in the Americas. We've got OPEC with capacity off-line and demand has been less than most people expected as we see a slowing economy here, we've seen slower growth in China than most people expected and it's a market that right now looks well supplied with some capacity held back. I think that explains the near term outlook you see.
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Brian Sullivan2:23
Adding production in the Permian, are you surprised the US is at record oil production? I don't think anybody would have thought in 2024 that the US would have been at 13.3 or 13.4 million barrels a day.
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Mike Wirth2:36
We started up a project in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico.
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Brian Sullivan2:39
The Anchor project.
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Mike Wirth2:41
First ever to get into a 20,000 pound per square inch regime of subsurface pressure, equivalent to an elephant standing on a quarter. New technology breakthroughs.
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Brian Sullivan2:53
Sounds bad for the quarter. I don't know what that means.
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Mike Wirth2:56
It's high pressure.
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Brian Sullivan2:56
Good for Chevron?
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Mike Wirth2:57
It's good for Chevron because it's good for the US because it opens up a new regime for us to explore and produce resources in this country in the deep water of Mexico. The Permian Basin we've been running ahead of our plans and upped our guidance, expect to be at a million barrels a day, just Chevron, in production in 2025. Producing 400 barrels in the basin. We've got lots of resource in this country, important for our economy and important for the competitiveness of the US.
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Brian Sullivan3:32
The deep water platform, as an anchor I like the bait, it's the Anchor. These projects are expensive and years to develop. This new project in Kazakhstan you've invested in over time. Tomorrow is Fed day. 25 or 50 basis points, everybody is talking about it. As somebody that allocates capital over years, you don't think in months, you think in decades. Do interest rates matter more or less than the price of oil for long-term capex decisions?
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Mike Wirth4:07
Long-term capex is grounded in the view of GDP growth, population growth, energy development in economies and growing middle class consumes more energy, and more than near term interest rates. What is important is policy stability and an investment environment that we can invest in for decades with confidence that we understand what the rules of the road will be and we can invest with confidence, which calls for a real...
