Have we passed Peak Chevron? When I joined, it was an ever growing, ever bright future with Chevron expanding in both relative and absolute terms.
For lots of reasons, some internal, some external, that no longer feels like the case. And if we are in secular decline, it has some pretty profound implication - no need for career development, no need for technology centers, no need for organic growth or exploration. We start to look more like Hilcorp and move on to harvest mode, aiming to sell assets at peak value.
This isn’t apocalyptic - lots of companies have gracefully managed decades long wind downs. It does mean a lot fewer jobs, but the ones that remain are high paying professionals. Just don’t expect advancement or company loyalty. And we’ll always be in danger of being swallowed by big red.
I mean how many people do you really need to sustain operations if you take out the fiction of growth, digital, lower carbon, personnel development, networks, etc, etc? I bet you could fit them all in 2 buildings…