Chevron Corporation

Good morning. My name is Katie, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Welcome to Chevron's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question and answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference call, please press star then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference call over to General Manager of Investor Relations of Chevron Corporation, Mr. Jake Spearing. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Katie. Welcome to Chevron's third quarter 2023 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm Jake Spearing, General Manager of Investor Relations. Our Chairman and CEO, Mike Wirth, and CFO, Pierre Breber, are on the call with me today. We will refer to the slides and prepare remarks that are available on Chevron's website. Before we begin, Please be reminded that this presentation contains estimates, projections, and other forward-looking statements. Please review the cautionary statement on slide two. Now, I will turn it over to Mike.

Thanks, Jake. I want to start by acknowledging the tragic events in the Middle East. We're deeply saddened by the loss of life, and our hearts go out to those affected by the war. We continue to prioritize the safety and well-being of our employees and their families, and the safe delivery of natural gas. Earlier this week, we announced that Chevron entered into a definitive agreement to acquire Hess Corporation. We expect this transaction to close in the first half of 2024, and we look forward to providing updates in the future. Now turning to the third quarter, we continue to make progress on our objective to safely deliver higher returns and lower carbon by returning more than $5 billion to shareholders for the sixth consecutive quarter and delivering ROCE greater than 12% for the ninth consecutive quarter. and investing in traditional energy by closing the PDC energy acquisition and in new energies by acquiring a majority stake in a green hydrogen production and storage hub in Utah. And earlier this month, we released our climate change resilience report, which details our approach, actions, and progress in reducing carbon intensity and growing new lower carbon businesses. I encourage everyone to read the report available on chevron.com. At TCO, base business continues to deliver good results. The plant turnaround was completed ahead of schedule, the reservoir is performing well, and the plant remains full. We expect a higher dividend in the fourth quarter. TCO has achieved mechanical completion at the future growth project. Following slower than expected commissioning progress, we conducted an independent cost and schedule review. We now forecast the wellhead pressure management project which is the field conversion from high pressure to low pressure to begin startup in the first half of 2024 and to continue through two major train turnarounds. FGP is expected to start up in the first half of 2025 and ramp to full production within three months. Total project cost is expected to increase between 3% and 5%. CCO production on a 100% basis in 2024 is forecasted to be about 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day lower than 2023 due to a heavier turnaround schedule and planned downtime for WPMP conversions. TCO is expected to reach greater than 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2025 when FGP fully ramps up. Pre-cash flow from TCO in 2025 is expected to be more than $4 billion, Chevron's share at $60 Brent, down about $1 billion from our prior estimate. Our focus remains on safe and reliable commissioning and startup. I'll now turn it over to Pierre to discuss the financials.