Chevron’s ambitious plans reflect its optimistic outlook on the industry and its confidence in the future of oil and natural gas. The $14 billion investment will be focused on various projects worldwide, including exploration, drilling, and infrastructure development. These projects will contribute to Chevron’s overall production capacity and help it secure its position as a leading player in the energy sector.
Chevron seems to believe oil and gas will continue to be profitable despite others’ investing in renewables.
I wonder how much of is subsidized funding.
Pretty much zero. They won’t be getting any real funding other then from investors or organic. About the only subsidies are in renewables.
Most oil and gas subsidies come in the form of tax writeoffs for tangible assets like well casing. Of course there are also dickhead governors who give tax abatements to megaprojects.
Which is a pretty legitimate write-off considering they are an expense. To expand what you mean is that in some cases they can be expensed entirely in one or two years instead of 5 or 6 years that most capital assets will be mostly written down. In the end, the government gets the same amount of taxes and the company will pay a similar amount of taxe. It is pretty hard to call that a subsidy. But this is always the one that comes up because typically there is no tax dollars provided and little to no other benefits oil and gas receive.
But secondly, and why it is pretty much a legitimate write off is that often, especially with exploration, the well value does not provide returns. When that is the case, all the capital spent on said well pretty much has zero value. It makes sense and is fair to write it off. You can do that on any business if you can justify that the item is no longer viable and you can’t sell it.
There are a number of reasons we should limit our fossil fuel consumption but it certainly is not for the tax benefits it provides.