Chevron CEO Defends Record Profits as ‘Modest Return’ Over Time
Oil major was losing billions just three years ago, Wirth says
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Chevron Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth pushed back on claims by President Joe Biden that Big Oil’s record profits are being made on the back of the war in Ukraine and at the expense of the American people.
The industry’s highest-ever cash haul should not be viewed in isolation because only three years ago it was “losing billions of dollars as prices plummeted,” Wirth said in an episode of “The David Rubenstein Show: Peer-to-Peer Conversations” on Bloomberg Television. “Through the cycle, it's an industry that generates 10%-ish returns on capital employed, which is I think, by the standards of many other industries, a pretty modest return.”