Chevron revamped its management team as it waived the mandatory retirement age for CEO Mike Wirth and said CFO Pierre Breber will retire and be replaced by CTO Eimear Bonner.
That move from CTO to CFO is a rarity. CTOs and CIOs often report to CFOs if not the CEO. Bonner as CTO was president of the Chevron Technical Center, which aims to use a host of technologies to boost efficiency at the oil giant.
While Bonner's move from CTO to CIO is rare, she has held a bevy of positions over her 24-year career at Chevron. Another reason a CTO can become a CFO: Chevron's ability to drive returns and efficiency is enabled by technologies including analytics, robotics, machine learning and high performance computing.
At Chevron's February Investor Day, Bonner outlined key technology projects. Here's a look at the interplay between Chevron's technology projects, strategy and efficiency drive:
Carbon capture. Bonner walked through carbon capture efforts and challenges with the water management system. Chevron improved its surface equipment and is continually tweaking. Bonner said Chevron has the fiber optics, modeling and data surveillance to improve.
"We’re piloting technologies in the San Joaquin Valley to learn how to capture carbon efficiently. To better understand CO2 storage and reservoir dynamics, we’re leveraging fiberoptics, novel seismic, and high-performance computing," said Bonner. "We look to subsequent assets where we would inject CO2, so all of that subsurface technology expertise, all of the surveillance expertise, all of the seismic expertise, all of that will be able to leverage for growing new energy business."
Methane management is another area of focus. "We’re leveraging machine learning to predict and prevent emissions and we’ve tested advanced technologies, including satellites, to detect and make timely repairs," she said.
Efficiency. Chevron has a bevy of efficiency projects leveraging everything from process mining to technologies that lower costs. Breber noted:
"The objective is to grow the company with the least amount of capital. We are not a growth investment."
Bonner added that Chevron's goal is to lower carbon intensity of its existing assets. "Our goal is to abate the maximum amount of carbon for every dollar that we spend. We have a large portfolio of projects, over 100 projects. We’ve got great momentum building around execution," said Bonner.
Robotics. Bonner said Chevron is piloting the use of robots to inspect tanks at its Salt Lake City refinery.
Seismic imaging. Bonner said Chevron is optimizing field development to get higher quality seismic images faster. This project is aimed at driving higher returns in the Gulf of Mexico and other "challenging geological environments."
Analytics. Chevron is testing tools that integrate operational, reservoir and economic data to enable faster development decisions and cycle time.
