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I had Jill with a Pillow in the Bedroom and blame it on the covid
ICYMI
==Chevron Exits California After Policy Disputes With Democrat Leaders
Bloomberg
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August 2, 2024
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By Kevin Crowley (Bloomberg) Chevron Corp. is relocating headquarters to Houston from California after repeatedly warning that the Golden State’s regulatory regime was making it a tough place to do business.
The move announced Friday will end the company’s more than 140 years of being based in the largest US state and comes amid a shake-up in senior leadership ranks apparently aimed at improving results.
Chevron already had slashed new investments in California refining, citing “adversarial” government policies in a state that has some of the most stringent environmental rules in the US. In January, refining executive Andy Walz warned that the state was playing a “dangerous game” with climate rules that threatened to spike gasoline prices.
Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth pushed back on suggestions that the relocation is being driven by politics, saying “it’s really to be closer to the core epicenter of our industry.”
“We’ve had some policy differences with California,” Wirth said during a Bloomberg Television interview. “But this isn’t a move about politics. It’s a move about what’s good for our company to compete and perform.”
Separately, Chevron missed second-quarter profit estimates, heaping pressure on Wirth to prevail in his $53 billion effort to acquire Hess Corp. Chevron shares fell as much as 2.9%.
Oracle, Tesla
Chevron joins a long list of California emigres that includes Oracle Corp., Hewlett Packard Enterprise Co. and Tesla Inc. While the migration among former Silicon Valley tech giants has been largely driven by tax and and cost-of-living considerations, Chevron has been at loggerheads with state leaders over increasingly tough fossil-fuel rules.
Wirth has been extolling the virtues of the Lone Star State’s business climate for at least half a decade.
“The policies in California have become pretty restrictive on a lot of business fronts, not just the environment,” he said during a 2019 speech in Houston.
California has long been an incongruent state for an oil company to call home. It pioneered the push to cut tailpipe emissions in the 1960s. And in 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a sweeping climate measure setting a goal for California to become net zero by 2045, five years ahead of US as a whole.
Frequent droughts and wildfires mean the state is already suffering from catastrophic effects of climate change. California accounts for more than a third of the country’s EV sales. And almost all of America’s renewable diesel, made from vegetable oil and natural fats, is consumed in California.
Three senior executives are departing Chevron, including oil-production chief Nigel Hearne and Colin Parfitt, who oversees pipeline and shipping businesses.
Hearne, 56, will see his duties handed over to Vice Chairman Mike Nelson, a key Wirth lieutenant. Parfitt’s replacement is Walz.
The leadership changes come just months after former Chief Financial Officer Pierre Breber issued a stern warning to employees to improve performance and results. The rebuke followed a year of dismal results stemming from refinery disruptions, weaker-than-expected oil production in the Permian Basin, and cost overruns and delays at a massive project in Kazakhstan.
Breber stepped down in March.
Second-quarter adjusted earnings per share of $2.55 were 38 cents below the median estimate among analysts surveyed by Bloomberg. The miss was in stark contrast to the outsized profits reported by Exxon Mobil Corp., Shell Plc and BP Plc, which capitalized on strong oil and natural gas production.
The Hess takeover was agreed to nearly 10 months ago but has been delayed by an arbitration case brought by arch-rival Exxon, which claims to have a right-of-first-refusal over Hess’s 30% stake in a Guyanese oil development. Chevron remains confident it will prevail but the case won’t be heard until May 2025.
The arbitration case leaves Chevron in strategic limbo, with investors struggling to analyze a company that will look very different if its biggest deal in two decades succeeds. Chevron claims Exxon’s right to Hess’s stake does not apply because the deal is structured as a corporate merger rather than an asset sale, and has vowed to walk away from Hess if the case fails.
In the meantime, Wirth is trying to make the case that Chevron has a strong investment case on a standalone basis. The company is aiming for 3% production growth annually through 2027 while it plans to buy back $20 billion of stock annually and recently increased its dividend.
Even so, Chevron has significantly underperformed Exxon this year with a roughly 2% advance compared with its bigger rival’s 17% gain.
https://gcaptain.com/chevron-exits-california-democratic-leadership/
Germany #106 >>21343489 translation via Yandex
Continue cheerfully at #Wokelympia's gender cramp - next stop Judo
The Polish candidate for the gold medal - judoka Angelika Szymańska - lost in the second round of the Olympic tournament to Mexican Prisca Alcaraz Aviti, posing as a woman.
Maryland Briefly Close Bridge as MARAD Reserve Vessel Losses Steering
Published Aug 2, 2024 11:08 AM by The Maritime Executive
It has happened again, or maybe officials have just become very sensitive to all reports of a vessel reporting momentary problems. Thursday midday Maryland officials according to a report in the Baltimore Sun suspended all vehicle traffic on the busy Chesapeake Bay Bridge, a six-mile-long roadway span crossing the Chesapeake Bay near Annapolis, Maryland. The order came after a former Military Sealift Command vessel bound for the boneyard reported steering problems.
The newspaper reports that Denebola (55,355 displacement tons) got underway for her final trip Thursday morning, August 1 after having laid in Baltimore for many years as part of the Ready Reserve Fleet. The Ro/Ro cargo ship is 946 feet in length (288 meters). Built in 1973, she operated for Sea-Land as the Sea Land Resource for less than a decade before being acquired in 1981 by the U.S. Navy. During her career, she was involved in the Persian Gulf War, operated to the Mediterranean, and Africa, before being transferred to MARAD in 2007 and placed in reserve in 2008. For years, she sat in Baltimore with her sister ship Antares.
The ship got underway yesterday heading for Beaumont, Texas, to be recycled. She stopped briefly in Baltimore’s harbor and then proceeded out of the port and into the Chesapeake. The Baltimore Sun reports she had reached a speed of 14 knots, but before it reached the bridge reported it lost “steerage.” It is unclear if she had a tug escort, but she would have still had a Maryland pilot aboard.
The Maryland Transportation Authority, according to the Baltimore Sun, ordered the bridge closed at 1:50 p.m. reporting a “ship in distress approaching the Bay Bridge.” Traffic remained suspended for 15 minutes. It brought back memories of March when the police closed the Key Bridge moments before the Dali impacted knocking down the structure.
A Coast Guard spokesperson confirmed to the newspaper that the vessel had a minor issue that was quickly rectified. The vessel stopped near Annapolis for a further check by the Coast Guard but as of Friday morning is back underway bound for Texas.
The Bay Bridge, the newspaper reports, has been occasionally closed such as when the Dali departed Baltimore weeks after the Key Bridge incident. Generally, the Baltimore Sun says, the bridge is closed to prevent distracted drivers.
In April, reports highlighted that tugs were called in to stop another containership, the APL Qingdao, when it lost propulsion in New York harbor near the Verrazzano Narrows Bridge at the entrance to the harbor. Baltimore also reported another incident in July when the containership Bellavia lost power departing the pier at the Dundalk Marine Terminal and had to return to the dock for repairs.
https://maritime-executive.com/article/maryland-briefly-close-bridge-as-marad-reserve-vessel-losses-steering