Chevron Corporation

Good morning. My name is Katie, and I'll be your conference facilitator today. Welcome to Chevron's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in 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 and then zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference call is being recorded. I will now turn the conference call over to the head of investor relations of Chevron Corporation, Mr. Jake Spearing. Please go ahead.

Thank you, Katie. Welcome to Chevron's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm Jake Spearing, head of investor relations. On the call with me today is our chairman and CEO, Mike Wirth, our vice chairman, Mark Nelson, and our vice president and CFO, Emer Bonner. We will refer to the slides and prepared 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. A reconciliation of non-GAAP measures can be found in the appendix to this presentation. Please review the cautionary statement and additional information presented on slide two. Now, I will turn it over to Mike.

All right. Thanks, Jake. In the second quarter, Chevron achieved several important milestones, continuing the momentum we've been building over the last year. The success underpins strong financial results, industry leading free cash flow growth, and superior distributions to shareholders. Production was a quarterly record for the company, both in the US and worldwide. In the Permian, production averaged more than one million barrels of oil equivalent per day, a target we introduced over five years ago and achieved right on schedule. In June, we acquired Lithium Rich Acreage in Texas and Arkansas, our first step toward establishing a scalable domestic lithium business. And we returned over $5 billion to shareholders for the 13th consecutive quarter. Two weeks ago, we achieved a favorable arbitration outcome and closed our merger with Hess, bringing together world-class assets, people, and capabilities to create a premier international energy company. Hess adds long-term, low-cost growth in Guyana, The Bakken expands our shale portfolio to 1.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. We're now the largest leaseholder in the Gulf of America. And our overall U.S. production is nearly 60% higher than it was just two years ago. Our combined upstream portfolio has interest in some of the most attractive basins in the world and is forecast to lead the industry in total cash generation over the remainder of the decade. We've been actively preparing for integration for nearly two years. Since the announcement, we've repurchased more than half of the shares issued for the transaction. We now expect to realize the full $1 billion in annual run rate synergies by the end of this year, six months faster than our original guidance. We anticipate the transaction to be cash flow accretive per share in the fourth quarter. Last week, we completed the sale of our interest in the Thailand-Malaysia joint development area, and this week, John Hess was elected to and actively participated in Chevron's Board of Directors meeting.