Energy Security for the Long Term
by David J. O’Reilly
Chairman and CEO
Chevron Corporation
The entertainment and energy industries in California have much more in common
than one might think. For one thing, both are always looking for new discoveries.
Chevron had a “near-discovery” in Los Angeles some years back: When
I started my career at Chevron near San Francisco, one of my colleagues had a
son named Bob. Bob had actually worked at our refinery in El Segundo for a while.
For all we knew, he may have been on the cusp of a promising career in the oil
business, just like his dad. One day his father invited us to see a new movie
that his son was in. We all came back impressed. The movie was Butch Cassidy
and the Sundance Kid. And Chuck Redford’s son Bob had one of the leading
roles. So, Robert Redford is one discovery that got away. But our loss was Hollywood’s
gain.
Besides that notable near-discovery, Chevron has shared much of California’s
history over the company’s 130-year history. We can trace our early
operations, in fact, to the Santa Susana Mountains and California’s
beginning as an oil-producing state. There in Pico Canyon sits a truly
big discovery – the first oil well in California to yield commercial
quantities of oil, beginning in 1877. Pico No. 4 produced until 1990, more
than 113 years later. That’s what folks in Hollywood would call a
good long run.
Pico No. 4 is just part of the larger Chevron story. I suspect most people
know Chevron through our service stations. But Chevron’s business
goes far beyond our retail network. We are one of the world’s largest
energy companies. We operate in 180 countries and employ a diverse, multicultural
workforce of 58,000 people, two-thirds of whom live outside the United
States.
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