Chevron Corp

Chevron Corp. agreed to convert its oilfield-operating contracts in Venezuela to joint ventures with state-owned Petroleos de Venezuela. A transitional agreement will be signed Monday, San Ramon-Calif.-based Chevron said. Venezuela has now reached such agreements covering 28 of the 32 fields operated by third parties.

Chevron Corp. posted its biggest second-quarter profit decline in four years and missed analysts' estimates as crude oil prices and production fell. Net income dropped 26% to $5.37 billion, or $2.77 a share, from $7.21 billion, or $3.66, a year earlier, the San Ramon, Calif., company said Friday. The per-share result was 19 cents below the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Chevron's oil and natural gas output fell 1.6% to the lowest second-quarter average in half a decade as new wells in Angola, the Gulf of Mexico and Pennsylvania failed to make up for declining production from older fields, according to the statement.

Chevron to Hunt Oil in South Caspian Sea: Chevron Overseas Exploration Ltd., a subsidiary of San Francisco-based Chevron Corp., said it has agreed with the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan Republic, or SOCAR, to evaluate the area's potential. Chevron will also aid in transferring advanced technology to the former Soviet republic.

SACRAMENTO - State Sen. Michael J. Rubio, who was leading the Legislature's effort to make California's environmental laws more business-friendly, abruptly resigned from office Friday to accept a government-affairs job with Chevron Corp. Rubio, a Democrat from Shafter, in the Central Valley, was chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee and introduced bills during his two years in office that related to the oil industry in his district. The state Fair Political Practices Commission will conduct a routine review of Rubio's move to make sure it involves no violation of the conflict-of-interest rules in California's Political Reform Act. "We will look to see if there is something to indicate that the act was violated and, if so, we will take a look at it," said the commission's chief of enforcement, Gary Winuk.

Chevron Corp. said it would work with Petroleo Brasileiro on a $2.4-billion project to pump oil from the Frade offshore field in Brazil. Chevron will operate the project, which will be one of the first major foreign-operated oil fields in Brazil in half a century. Frade is scheduled to begin output by late 2008 or early 2009, the San Ramon, Calif.-based company said.

Chevron Corp. said it had identified 550 jobs to be eliminated after its $17.3-billion acquisition of independent oil and gas producer Unocal this summer. In a quarterly report filed with securities regulators, Chevron said that most of the jobs were executive and administrative positions. Chevron said it expected to complete the post-merger restructuring and reorganization by the end of 2006.

State Sen. Michael J. Rubio (D - Shafter) abruptly announced Friday that he is resigning his office to spend more time with his family and accept a government affairs job with Chevron Corp. The departure of Rubio, who was leading the charge to make California's environmental laws more business-friendly, creates a third vacancy in the 40-person Senate. “As many of you know, a little over a year ago I decided not to run for the United States Congress to meet the needs of my growing family," Rubio said in a statement.  "My time serving since then has been a blessing, but it has also been a challenge.  I have missed too many family dinners, bedtime stories and parent-teacher conferences.

Chevron Corp. saw a first-quarter profit rise of 4.2% to $6.47 billion, or $3.27 per share. That compared with $6.21 billion, or $3.09 per share, a year earlier. Sales for the world's third-largest publicly traded oil company were up just slightly to $60.71 billion, compared with $60.34 billion in the first quarter last year. San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron substantially increased capital and exploratory spending to $6.42 billion, up from $5.05 billion a year earlier. Chevron oil and gas production declined to 2.63 million barrels per day in the first quarter, compared with 2.76 million barrels a day during the same period a year ago. The company's earnings were hurt by a sharp year-to-year decline in natural gas prices, but the decline and collapsing natural gas prices were more than offset by sharply higher oil prices.

The chief executives of Chevron Corp.'s and Transocean Ltd.'s Brazilian units are among 17 executives at the two companies banned from leaving the country pending an investigation into an offshore oil spill. Chevron's George Buck and Transocean's Michael Legrand were on the list of managers that federal prosecutors asked Judge Vlamir Costa Magalhaes to ban from leaving Brazil, according to a copy of the request sent Monday by the prosecutor's office. The judge issued the ban Friday.

Chevron Corp. on Monday will unveil a solar oil field project that has been hit by cost overruns and delays but serves as a showcase for the technology of Chevron-backed solar thermal company BrightSource Energy. Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, said Friday that three of its executives would attend the launch of the "demonstration project" in Coalinga, which is designed to use solar power to create steam to inject into wells to improve the flow of heavy oil. The 65-acre project consists of 7,600 mirrors focusing sunlight on a 327-foot tower.

Chevron Corp. continued what has been a very big week for most of the world's super-sized oil companies, shattering analyst expectations and tripling its second-quarter profit to $5.4 billion compared with a year earlier. The industry's pumped-up profit provides a fresh target for public anguish over the Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which has fouled beaches in five states since the deadly April 20 explosion of a rig drilling a well for London oil giant BP. "They are thriving when a lot of families are out there suffering," said Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program.

In one of Hollywood's most gripping legal thrillers, Chevron Corp. is trying to obtain 600 hours of outtakes from a documentary film focused on oil industry environmental practices in Ecuador, sparking a court battle that has attracted the attention of 1st Amendment lawyers, top filmmakers, show business unions and a corporation that says it was defamed in another nonfiction film. For 17 years, the San Ramon, Calif.-based energy giant has fought a class-action lawsuit in Ecuador that could cost it up to $27 billion in damages and cleanup costs.

Chevron Corp. reported its largest profit increase in at least a decade, exceeding analyst estimates, after recovering economies around the world increased fuel demand. First-quarter net income more than doubled to $4.55 billion, or $2.27 a share, from $1.84 billion, or 92 cents, a year earlier, San Ramon, Calif.-based Chevron said Friday. Excluding severance costs, per-share profit was about $2.38, 43 cents higher than the average analyst estimate compiled by Bloomberg. Chevron Chief Executive John Watson boosted oil and natural-gas output by 4.5% with new wells from the Gulf of Mexico to Australia.

On a dirt plot near Bakersfield where a massive refinery once churned out gasoline and asphalt, one of the world's largest oil companies is looking for something more green. On Monday, Chevron Corp. plans to reveal that it has transformed the 8-acre site into a sprawling test facility with 7,700 solar panels. The panels, in various sizes, represent seven cutting-edge photovoltaic technologies from seven companies that Chevron is checking out as possible candidates to power its operations worldwide.