Chevron announce $19.8bn capital and exploratory investment programme for next year

US-based energy firm Chevron has announced a $19.8bn capital and exploratory investment programme for 2017.

The programme also includes $4.7bn of planned affiliate expenditures.

Chevron chairman and CEO John Watson said: “Our spending for 2017 targets shorter-cycle time, high-return investments and completing major projects under construction. In fact, over 70% of our planned upstream investment programme is expected to generate production within two years.

“This is the fourth consecutive year of spending reductions. Construction is nearing completion on several major capital projects, which are now online or expected to come online in the next few quarters.

"This combination of lower spending and growth in production revenues supports our overall objective of becoming cash balanced in 2017.”

The next year budget is 42% less than that of 2015 outlays. It is also expected to be 15% lower than the projected 2016 capital investments.

In the upstream business, nearly $8.5bn of planned capital spending is associated to base-producing assets that also comprise approximately $2.5bn billion for shale and tight investments.

Most of the shale and tight investments by Chevron is allocated for Permian Basin developments in Texas and New Mexico.

Another $7bn of planned upstream programme is allocated to major capital projects that are currently ongoing.

It provides approximately $2bn to complete the Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects in Australia and $3bn of affiliate expenditures related to the Future Growth Project-Wellhead Pressure Management Project (FGP-WPMP) project in the Tengiz field, Kazakhstan.

Chevron provides $1bn for global exploration funding from the total upstream budget. The remaining amount will be spent in early stage projects assisting their development opportunities.

---

Image: Chevron Corporation headquarters in San Ramon, California. Photo: Courtesy of Coolcaesar / Wikipedia