Chevron Delays Budget Announcement Until January - "Re-examining" Business Plan

[hatrack]

Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- Chevron Corp., the world’s fourth- largest oil company, postponed its 2009 capital-spending announcement by a month, until January, after crude lost two- thirds of its value and recessions in the world’s biggest economies crimped fuel demand.

“We are doing so because the market conditions have changed significantly, and we are now re-examining our business plans in light of changes in the business environment,” Mickey Driver, a spokesman for the San Ramon, California-based company, said today in an e-mailed statement.

Driver said Chevron’s 2009 spending “will remain steady” with this year’s $22.9 billion budget. The company increased spending on wells, refineries, natural-gas plants and pipelines for five straight years as escalating energy prices made previously uneconomical projects profitable.

Chief Executive Officer David O’Reilly is seeking to reverse a two-year decline in production and restore reserves that tumbled to a 10-year low in 2007. Chevron declined 33 percent this year, poised for the worst annual performance since 1980, as falling energy prices pushed oil stocks lower and the global economic crisis prompted investors to shed equities.

EDIT

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=amkli1u7eCZk&refer=us

[NOW tense]

1. I think they have a big profit regardless

They are hoping to hide it till January.