ChevronTexaco is having one of its best years ever exploration-wise, and is well on its way toward creating a global natural gas business, according to CEO Dave O’Reilly.

Speaking to a shareholders’ meeting Thursday in Midland, TX, O’Reilly offered his take on several of the integrated major’s accomplishments in the past year. He said that the merger between Chevron and Texaco was completed, with common systems, policies and practices in place, and the combined company has achieved an annual synergy savings of $2.2 billion, well above the original $1.2 billion estimated.

O’Reilly noted that ChevronTexaco’s new global natural gas business already has “strong” positions in the United States, Australia and West Africa, with technologies and infrastructure in place to produce and deliver more gas. Earlier this week, ChevronTexaco announced the creation of ChevronTexaco Global Gas, a new subsidiary that is expected to play a key role in strategic plans to commercialize its existing natural gas resource base and enable the creation and development of new natural gas growth opportunities worldwide (see Daily GPI, May 22).

In other comments, Vice Chairman Peter Robertson described major projects under way in the upstream business. New production is slated to begin this year from the Athabasca oil sands in Canada as well as in Chad-Cameroon, and production is increasing at the Karachaganak development in Kazakhstan.

“From now through 2007, we’ll be steadily bringing on major new oil and gas developments that will enable us to maintain a strong production profile well into the future,” said Robertson.

In its downstream sector, Executive Vice President Patricia Woertz said the company had built a platform for greater profitability. Among successes in 2002, she said the downstream moved quickly to capture efficiencies from the merger and was continuing to lower costs.

Stockholders also voted on six proposals, with preliminary results showing four approved and two defeated. Those apparently approved were the following:

Final voting results will be reported in ChevronTexaco’s second quarter Form 10Q, which will be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission in August 2003.

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