Multinational oil corporation, Chevron, has appointed Mike Wirth the head of Global Exploration as its Chief Executive Officer works to improve the company’s track record in discovering new sources of oil and gas.
The Multinational company also named Kevin McLachlan as its vice president of Exploration with effective from November 1. McLachlan, who succeeds veteran executive Liz Schwarze, who will retire in February after 36 years with the US oil major, has experience at several rival oil firms, most recently as senior vice president of exploration at French oil major TotalEnergies.
He also previously held positions at Murphy Oil, Nexen and ExxonMobil. Wirth has expressed disappointment with recent exploration results. Chevron closed its acquisition of smaller oil producer Hess in July, giving a much-needed boost to Chevron’s oil and gas reserves.
But Wirth said exploration needs to play an important role in the strategy going forward. “I’m not happy with the results out of exploration over the last few years,” he said in August during the secondquarter earnings conference call.
He did acknowledge that the exploration team had been operating in a narrow range with reduced investment as Chevron focused on growing U.S. shale and balancing capital discipline.
Chevron had in January said it did not find commercial hydrocarbon reserves at an exploration well in Namibia’s Orange Basin. UK-based Shell was also dealt a blow in the country, writing down $400 million over an oil discovery it deemed commercially unviable.
