Chevron Corp.’s domestic operations, particularly in the Permian Basin, performed “stronger than we had anticipated” in the first quarter, with improved cycle times and natural gas and oil output, CEO Mike Wirth said Friday.

During a conference call to discuss quarterly performance, Wirth explained to analysts how the Permian portfolio improved as the wellhead-to-sales times were shorter. More efficiencies helped to reduce the costs and time for drilling and fracturing (fracking).

“We’ve seen reliability improvements that translate into slightly less decline in our base production,” Wirth said. “We saw significantly shorter frack-to-pop cycle time between when we completed a frack and when we put it on production.

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