Chevron, the second-largest U.S. oil company, is moving its headquarters to Houston, from California, formalizing a long-expected breakup with a state that has pushed aggressively to address climate change.
The company’s ties to California date to the 1870s. Chevron said it already had roughly 7,000 employees in the Houston area and around 2,000 at its current headquarters in San Ramon, Calif., near San Francisco.
The State of California sued Chevron and other large oil companies last year, claiming that they misled the public about the risks of fossil fuels, the extraction of use of which are a leading cause of climate change.
Chevron’s chief executive, Mike Wirth, criticized the lawsuit last year, saying in a Bloomberg Television interview that litigation was not the right approach.
“Climate change is a global issue,” Mr. Wirth said. “It calls for a coordinated global policy response, not piecemeal litigation that benefits attorneys and politicians.”
The oil and gas industry has been coalescing in the Houston area in recent years, with Exxon Mobil moving its headquarters from a suburb of Dallas.
Chevron’s announcement came as the company reported second-quarter earnings on Friday that missed the expectations of Wall Street analysts. The company said profit fell 26 percent, to $4.4 billion, from the same period a year ago. Lower profit margins in its oil refining business hurt the company’s bottom line, even as higher oil and gas production lifted revenue overall.
Its rival Exxon Mobil delivered stronger results than analysts were expecting for the April-to-June period. Profit rose 17 percent from a year ago, to $9.2 billion, as the company’s quarterly oil and gas output reached a record.
Chevron’s stock fell more than 1 percent in early trading, and Exxon’s shares inched higher.
Chevron’s headquarters move will be effective on Jan. 1 and Mr. Wirth will relocate to Texas by the end of this year. The company sold its longtime corporate campus in San Ramon in 2022 and has since been leasing office space.
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