SAN RAMON, CALIFORNIA (February 2, 2024)–This morning, Chevron announced its Q4 2023 profits – bringing its full 2023 profits to more than $21 billion and a record $26.3 billion in cash for shareholders. In response, Greenpeace USA’s California Climate Campaign Director, Zachary Norris, said: “While Chevron makes massive profits, Californians lose out. Chevron shareholders sure are sitting pretty while communities and our planet take a hit. Their profit is our loss.
“This greedy company drains our wallets, drills in our neighborhoods, and poisons our air, all while locking us into a future filled with climate-driven disasters. Chevron, headquartered in California, has contributed to a $10 billion dollar mess of idle wells across the state, many in Black, Brown, Indigenous, immigrant, and low income communities. At the same time, raging wildfires and unprecedented flooding and drought have transformed our state. Chevron needs to face its destructive legacy: stop drilling, start paying to clean up their mess, and fund the transition to a clean energy economy.
“Chevron’s massive profit and shareholder payout comes at the same time as the company lobs bitter attacks on California’s regulatory environment. But the reality is that oil fields in California continue to dry up while climate disasters impact more and more of us. It is time Chevron faces these circumstances head-on.”
With every new oil and gas project that is given the green light, global emissions continue to rise to dangerous levels – and ordinary people are paying the price. 2023 was the hottest year on record. The economic cost from weather and climate events in 2023 alone was estimated at 301 billion USD.
In a report released earlier this week, Chevron was found to be producing an abysmal 3 barrels of oil per day per well in California. In other words, with these wells open, Chevron is able to avoid paying to properly cap them and clean up its mess. Even when not much oil is produced, open wells can emit methane and toxic compounds harming our health and our climate.
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Contact: Katie Nelson, Greenpeace USA Senior Communications Specialist, [email protected], +1 (678) 644-1681
Greenpeace USA is part of a global network of independent campaigning organizations that use peaceful protest and creative communication to expose global environmental problems and promote solutions that are essential to a green and peaceful future. Greenpeace USA is committed to transforming the country’s unjust social, environmental, and economic systems from the ground up to address the climate crisis, advance racial justice, and build an economy that puts people first. Learn more at www.greenpeace.org/usa.
