Key Takeaways Chevron's production rose 20% to a record 4.07M BOE/d in Q2, while structural savings hit $3B.CVX's TTM ROIC is 7.8%, below the 8.6% industry median despite strong cash-flow conversion.Chevron posted $15.4B adjusted FCF and a record $8.4B debt paydown as earnings remained uneven. Oil and gas supermajor Chevron (CVX - Free Report) is benefiting from strong production and Hess buyout synergies. Structural cost reductions have also improved the economics of its massive energy portfolio.
But for investors, the big question is whether Chevron is turning that operating strength into consistently attractive returns. Looking at return on invested capital (ROIC), cash conversion and earnings linearity, we can say that the company is generating plenty of cash, but its returns and earnings consistency leave room for improvement.
The Operating Engine Is RealIn the last reported quarter, Chevron’s worldwide production jumped 20% year over year to a record 4.07 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, powered by the Hess acquisition, Permian growth, and the Gulf of America. On the cost side, Chevron hit $3 billion in annual run-rate structural savings and $1.5 billion in Hess synergies— both six months ahead of schedule. Management is also guiding toward spending 25% less capital per barrel of oil equivalent in 2026 than in 2025.
Put together, Chevron is pumping more oil, spending less to do it, and cutting the capital it needs per barrel going forward.
But Capital Efficiency Hasn’t Kept PaceBased on our proprietary calculation, Chevron's trailing-12-month ROIC stands at 7.8%, above its own 10-year median of 6.3%, indicating that capital efficiency remains better than its longer-term historical norm.
But the more recent trend is less encouraging. CVX’s ROIC has slipped from a 5-year median of 9.4% to a 3-year median of 8.3% and now stands at 7.8%. At the same time, its current ROIC is below the 8.6% industry median. Close peers like ExxonMobil (XOM - Free Report) and Shell (SHEL - Free Report) also generate higher ROIC, at 9.2% and 10.2%, respectively.
The production growth and cost discipline are happening, but they haven't yet translated into a sustained improvement in capital efficiency. Part of the disconnect may be the industry's commodity sensitivity. Higher production and lower unit costs can improve the underlying economics, but weaker oil and gas prices can still compress profits and ROIC faster than the capital base adjusts.
If Hess synergies, structural cost cuts, and a lighter capital footprint in U.S. shale keep compounding, ROIC can increase from here. A downturn in commodity prices or slippage on execution could just as easily pull it the other way. The next few quarters of ROIC data will matter more than any single production headline.
The Cash Flow Story Holds UpIf ROIC shows how productively Chevron uses its capital, cash flow conversion shows whether those earnings are turning into real money. And here, the picture is much cleaner.
Chevron’s TTM cash-flow conversion runs at 220.1%, with free-cash-flow conversion at 131.2%, per our proprietary calculations. Both are a bit below their historical medians, but still comfortably strong. In the last reported quarter, Chevron generated $19.7 billion of operating cash flow excluding working capital, $15.4 billion of adjusted free cash flow, and a record $8.4 billion debt paydown.
Chevron is effective at converting profits into cash to reduce debt, fund investments and return capital to shareholders. That helps offset the ROIC concern. Even if capital efficiency is middling now, the balance sheet is getting materially stronger.
Earnings Are Still UnevenChevron's earnings also lack consistency. Per our proprietary model, its 10-year EPS linearity is only 30.9%, below the 34.8% industry median and far below the 100% ideal baseline. Meanwhile, 10-year EPS CAGR (on a TTM basis) of 9.5% trails the industry median of 13.2%.
That inconsistency largely comes down to commodity exposure. Chevron's earnings move with oil, gas and refining prices rather than following a steady operational trajectory. Mixed downstream demand and softer energy prices can therefore add further volatility to earnings.
Peers show a similar spread. ExxonMobil's EPS linearity sits at 37.5%, while Shell's at 29.1%, suggesting earnings volatility is a sector-wide feature.
Tying It TogetherChevron's higher production, cost cuts and Hess synergies are improving the business, and the benefits are already showing up in strong cash generation. But the improvement in operations has not yet translated into a similar improvement in ROIC as Chevron's earnings remain tied to the highly cyclical energy market.
The Zacks Rundown for ChevronShares of Chevron have gained 38% year to date, outperforming the industry, ExxonMobil and Shell.
YTD Price Performance Comparison Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
From a valuation perspective— in terms of forward price-to-earnings ratio— Chevron is trading at a premium compared with the industry average. The stock is also trading above its five-year mean of 11.81.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The Zacks Consensus Estimate for CVX’s 2026 earnings is pegged at $16.51 per share, indicating 126% year-over-year growth. EPS estimates have been revised upward in the last 60 days.
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Key Takeaways Oil prices hit three-month highs as Middle East tensions and disrupted Gulf crude flows tighten supply.Dividend-paying energy stocks can provide recurring income while reducing reliance on oil-price gains.Kinder Morgan, Chevron and Canadian Natural Resources offer 3%-plus yields and diversified cash flows. Energy stocks have traditionally appealed to investors looking for income, especially when uncertainty makes dependable cash returns more valuable. That argument looks particularly relevant now as geopolitical tensions and disruptions to major energy routes are once again creating sharp swings in crude prices.
For investors who want exposure to energy without depending entirely on rising oil prices, Kinder Morgan (KMI - Free Report) , Chevron (CVX - Free Report) and Canadian Natural Resources (CNQ - Free Report) remain worth considering. Their large operating footprints, established businesses and focus on shareholder returns can provide a more balanced way to participate in the sector.
Geopolitical Risks Put Oil Back in FocusOil prices have climbed to their highest levels in more than three months following fresh attacks on energy infrastructure in Saudi Arabia. U.S. benchmark crude recently moved to roughly $95 per barrel, while Brent approached the $100 level, as investors reacted to escalating tensions involving Saudi Arabia, Yemen's Houthi forces and the broader U.S.-Iran conflict.
Supply concerns have also intensified around the Strait of Hormuz. Oil flows through the important shipping route have fallen sharply since fighting resumed, while overall Gulf crude exports remain well below their pre-conflict level. That has tightened the physical oil market and kept traders focused on the possibility of further disruptions.
Still, crude could move in either direction. Improving shipping conditions or easing political tensions could reduce the supply premium, while additional restrictions or attacks could tighten the market further. As a result, geopolitical developments are likely to remain an important driver of oil prices.
Why Dividend-Paying Energy Stocks Stand OutThis uncertain backdrop strengthens the case for looking beyond companies whose fortunes depend mainly on the daily movement in crude prices.
Large energy companies with diversified businesses and disciplined capital-allocation policies may be better equipped to keep generating cash and rewarding shareholders through different commodity cycles. Regular dividends can also provide investors with a continuing source of return when stock prices turn volatile.
Dividend-paying energy stocks can therefore offer a useful middle ground. Investors still gain exposure to the energy sector and can benefit from supportive commodity markets, but part of the investment case rests on recurring shareholder distributions rather than oil-price appreciation alone.
A More Balanced Way to Approach EnergyOil prices could remain volatile as the market weighs supply disruptions against the possibility of softer demand and eventual geopolitical easing. That makes it difficult for investors to build an energy strategy around a single view of where crude prices will head next.
Established dividend payers can offer a more balanced approach. Their size, financial resources and ability to generate cash from different operations can help them navigate commodity-market swings while continuing to return capital to investors.
Against this backdrop, Kinder Morgan, Chevron and Canadian Natural Resources – each carrying a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) - offer three different ways to participate in the energy market while maintaining an income focus. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Dividend Yield Comparison
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
3 Dividend Energy Stocks to ConsiderKinder Morgan: Kinder Morgan operates one of North America’s largest energy infrastructure networks, with 78,000 miles of pipelines and extensive storage assets. Its take-or-pay contracts across natural gas, refined products, crude oil and terminals generate relatively stable, fee-based cash flows, helping reduce sensitivity to short-term commodity-price swings and offering more defensive energy exposure during volatile market conditions.
The company expects a dividend increase in 2026, which would mark its ninth consecutive annual raise. Its current payout of 29.75 cents per quarter results in a 3.7% yield. With demand for natural gas and LNG infrastructure rising, Kinder Morgan’s asset base positions it well for continued cash flow durability.
Chevron: Chevron’s integrated business spans oil and gas exploration, production, refining and chemicals, providing multiple sources of cash flow across market cycles. Its broad geographic presence across the United States, Asia-Pacific, Africa, the Middle East and South America, together with its scale and financial strength, supports free cash flow generation and continued shareholder returns.
Chevron has maintained or raised its dividend for 90 years, underscoring a long track record of resilience. Its 3.4% yield stands above both the sector and well ahead of the S&P 500’s 1% average. A steady near-term earnings outlook, disciplined capital spending and continued efficiency gains should support the company’s ability to sustain attractive shareholder payouts.
Canadian Natural Resources: Canadian Natural Resources owns a large portfolio of long-life, low-decline assets producing light and heavy oil, bitumen, synthetic crude and natural gas. Its operations across Western Canada, the North Sea and offshore West Africa provide geographic and product diversification, while disciplined spending and a consistent focus on shareholder returns strengthen its appeal to income-oriented investors.
The company has increased its dividend for 26 consecutive years, supported by operational efficiency and consistent earnings performance. Its current quarterly dividend of 62.50 Canadian cents equates to a 3.6% yield, comfortably ahead of the Zacks Oil/Energy sector average of 2.6%. A strong balance sheet and efficient capital deployment reinforce the sustainability of its shareholder returns.
Students of the energy sector and financial market history know that there was a time when one of the clarion calls most frequently aimed at this industry was that "the world is running out of oil."
That's probably not true because discoveries of new proven reserves aren't infrequent, and technological advancements, though expensive, make tapping new fields easier than ever. So the significant issues facing investors evaluating oil stocks, including Chevron (CVX +0.57%), are access and extraction in regions with viable oil reserves.
Image source: Getty Images.
That gets us to Chevron's long-running involvement in Venezuela, a country that hasn't always been hospitable to Western oil majors. The U.S. oil giant is planning to spend $7 billion in Venezuela during the next five years to boost its daily production there to 600,000 barrels, or more than double the current rate of 280,000 barrels.
Calling Venezuela Chevron's Waterloo is a stretch, but more than doubling output there in five years is, at a minimum, ambitious and a roll of the dice.
Timing is everything Unbeknownst to many investors, Chevron's presence in Venezuela dates back more than a century. What many market participants know today, particularly in the wake of former President Nicolas Maduro's capture earlier this year by U.S. forces, is that because Chevron stuck it out in Venezuela through previous political volatility, the company is positioned to reap the biggest rewards if the country's oil market opens in earnest.
Related to that, President Donald Trump recently announced that the U.S. and Venezuela reached an agreement under which the U.S. gains control of 65 billion barrels of Venezuelan crude. Hence, Chevron is expanding into two more Orinoco Belt fields and pledging to spend mightily in the country.
Here's where things get murky regarding any company substantially boosting output in Venezuela during the next several years. Some critics speculate that current Venezuelan President Delcy Rodriguez is simply playing ball with the White House and that the agreement is a facade meant to wait out Trump's time in office. He leaves the Oval Office in January 2029, which is obviously before 2031.
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Some oil industry insiders were quick to criticize the deal, adding that the Venezuelan fields the U.S. hopes its companies will tap in a big way, could take years to adequately develop. They didn't explicitly define "years." Maybe it's three years, five, or 10, but the point is that a day may come when Chevron is pumping 600,000 barrels per day in Venezuela, though there are no promises that day will arrive in 2031.
Politics is a wild card Experienced investors know that energy stocks are highly politically sensitive, both at home and abroad. That's a point Chevron shareholders must consider, particularly regarding Venezuela, and for multiple reasons. First, Rodriguez is a Maduro ally, implying she could appear to be on board with the 65-billion-barrel agreement, only to go back on it later.
Second, diplomats and supporters of democracy believe that the best path forward for Venezuela is for Rodriguez to act as a placeholder until free and fair elections are held. Under that scenario, opposition leader María Corina Machado, who won a national election in 2023 but was barred from taking office, could ascend to the Venezuelan presidency. That would be good for democracy, but not necessarily for the oil agreement, which she's criticized by saying that the country's oil reserves aren't the property of an "illegitimate regime."
Machado is keenly aware that oil is an emotional issue to ordinary Venezuelans, and the commodity is integral to rebuilding the country's economy, one that was the envy of Latin America from the 1950s up until the global energy crisis in the 1970s.
The point is, if she or another free-market candidate becomes president, Venezuela could be willing to work with Western oil producers such as Chevron, but on terms that are favorable to the country, not just to the companies. That could throw a wrench into Chevron's 600,000 barrels-per-day goal.
Chevron has surged more than 42% this year and is brushing against a 52-week high, but the real question is whether the fundamentals driving that run can hold at these prices or whether the easy money is already gone.
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Chevron has ripped higher through 2026, and the rally has pushed shares within reach of a fresh record. The question I want to answer is whether the 24/7 Wall St. price target still sees room to run, or whether the market has already priced in the good news.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction) trades at $212.26, up 42.82% year to date and 36% over the past year. Our 24/7 Wall St. price target for Chevron is $204.67, implying downside of 3.81% over the next twelve months. Our recommendation is hold, with high model confidence of 90%.
Metric Value Current Price $212.26 24/7 Wall St. Price Target $204.67 Upside/Downside -3.81% Recommendation HOLD Confidence Level 90% Why We Could Be Wrong Our 24/7 Wall St. price target sits just below where Chevron trades today.
Bull scenarios exist: the 20-year Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) power purchase agreement covering 2.67 gigawatts at Project Kilby could unlock a new commodity-independent cash flow stream, and Brent staying elevated on Strait of Hormuz tightness could easily push earnings past current estimates. Consider the target one datapoint. A full bull case follows below.
A Rally Built on Real Numbers Chevron is up 10.58% over the past month and 5.78% over the past week, brushing against a 52-week high of $212.79.
Q2 FY26 was the fuel: adjusted EPS of $6.06, revenue of $67.20B (+51.43% YoY), and worldwide production of 4,070 MBOED (+20% YoY), marking a seventh straight EPS beat. Chevron also cut total debt by $8.41B in the quarter. WTI has cooperated too, climbing to $91.48 on September 1 from the mid-$70s a month earlier.
Why Bulls See a Breakout Above $228 The bull case rests on four legs: Guyana, Permian efficiency, Kilby, and cash returns. Mike Wirth called Chevron’s opportunity set “the largest and highest quality opportunity set that we’ve had in years,” and the company delivered $15.4 billion in adjusted free cash flow in the quarter with net debt to CFFO of just 0.6 times.
Chevron captured 50% more Hess synergies than initially targeted and is targeting 2-3% annual production growth and 10%+ adjusted free cash flow growth through 2030.
Our bull-case one-year price is $228.19, and Wall Street’s consensus target sits at $218.29 with 20 buy or strong-buy ratings.
Risks Worth Watching Before Chasing the Rally Chevron trades at a P/E of 34, well above peers, and the model’s bear case lands at $181.75. Brent averaging $104/BBL lifted Q2, but the EIA sees Brent below $70 per barrel in real 2025 dollars through 2030. CPC pipeline risk in Kazakhstan and Middle East volatility remain live.
A counterpoint: the elevated trailing P/E reflects prior-year charges rather than structural weakness, and Chevron already hit its $3B structural cost reduction run-rate six months ahead of schedule.
How Chevron Compares to Exxon and ConocoPhillips Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM) is the natural integrated benchmark and trades at a P/E of 23 with a return on equity of 11.03%, versus Chevron’s ROE of 7.26%. Exxon’s $20 billion 2026 buyback and Guyana leadership justify a premium, and its cheaper multiple makes Chevron’s valuation look stretched.
ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP) is the pure-play upstream counterpoint. COP delivered Q2 26 adjusted EPS of $3.24 on $19.16 billion in revenue (+37.07% YoY) and is targeting 45% of cash from operations returned to shareholders in 2026. Its capital-return intensity exceeds Chevron’s, reinforcing my view that CVX’s premium is fair rather than cheap.
Company P/E Dividend Yield Chevron 34 3.07% Exxon Mobil 23 2.55% ConocoPhillips N/A N/A Chevron Price Prediction 2026-2030 My verdict is hold, with 90% confidence and a 24/7 Wall St. price target of $204.67. The key factor tipping the scale: the stock is up more than 42% YTD and now sits at 52-week highs while forward multiples price in perfect execution.
The bullish setup strengthens if Brent holds above $95 and Project Kilby reaches final investment decision this year. The setup weakens if WTI slips back toward the July low of $69.60 or if CPC disruptions escalate.
Looking further out, here is where our model projects Chevron could trade, assuming current growth trajectories hold.
Year 24/7 Wall St. Price Target 2026 $204.67 2027 $202.79 2028 $204.09 2029 $209.02 2030 $214.57 These projections assume Chevron continues executing on Hess integration, Permian efficiency, and Project Kilby. Significant upside could come from sustained Brent above $100, while a demand slowdown could push shares toward the bear case of $184 by 2030.
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Chevron is a direct beneficiary of the Iran war and the resulting higher commodity prices for oil, gasoline, diesel, and chemicals while global strategic reserves have fallen to critical levels. Project Kilby positions CVX to monetize Permian Basin natural gas by supplying dedicated power to a very large Microsoft AI data-center via a 20-year take-or-pay power supply agreement. The war with Iran is not likely to end any time soon and could last well into next year. As a result, Chevron could earn up to $15/share in FY26.
Chevron (CVX.N) will more than double the number of oil rigs it operates in Venezuela as part of its five-year plan to increase production in the country, Chief Financial Officer Eimear Bonner said at a Barclays conference on Tuesday.
Last week, the U.S. oil major said its joint venture partnerships in Venezuela would invest more than $7 billion to more than double oil output to 600,000 barrels per day by 2031.
The company has long maintained its presence despite years of political upheaval, and the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump has been urging oil producers to invest in Venezuela following the removal of President Nicolas Maduro by U.S. forces.
Once the joint ventures achieve 600,000 bpd, Chevron anticipates production will reach a plateau level between 600,000 to 700,000 bpd, Bonner said.
"The large resource base gives us the opportunity to extend that plateau for five to 10 years, and that's just the initial recovery from the reservoirs," she said. "There's a lot more upside there."
Chevron also received the right to international arbitration as part of its new contract terms that were signed last week, Bonner added.
The ability to resolve potential disputes under international arbitration courts has been a key requirement cited by other oil producers including ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips, which exited Venezuela in 2007 when their assets were nationalized and say they are still owed money.
Striking Oil: How the U.S. Play for Venezuela Fuels SupermajorsChevron NYSE: CVX sees Venezuela as a potentially significant source of low-cost production growth after negotiating revised commercial and legal terms that Chief Financial Officer Eimear Bonner said made the country’s resource base competitive within the company’s global portfolio.
Speaking at the Barclays Energy-Power Conference, Bonner said Chevron is producing about 280,000 barrels of oil per day in Venezuela and expects to raise that volume to 600,000 barrels per day by 2031. The company expects a production plateau of between 600,000 and 700,000 barrels per day that could last five to 10 years, based on primary recovery alone.
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Bloom Energy’s AI Surge Meets a Valuation Reality Check“This is an enormous resource base, low cost, total cost less than $20 a barrel, lots of run room,” Bonner said. Chevron plans to invest $7 billion on growth in Venezuela over a five-year period and more than double its rig count there.
Venezuela expansion supported by revised terms Bonner said Chevron’s expansion is supported by additional acreage, including contiguous acreage obtained through a swap completed in April, as well as the Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2 blocks announced more recently. She said the company does not expect to need major new infrastructure to achieve its production-growth target.
These 5 Dividend Stocks Show Why Income Investing Still MattersAccording to Bonner, Chevron has maintained equipment, conducted turnarounds and continued asset-integrity and process-safety programs since implementing a capital-efficient model for its Venezuelan joint ventures nearly three years ago. Future infrastructure additions are expected to resemble smaller pipeline and utility tie-ins used in “factory-type” shale development rather than major capital projects.
Bonner said the revised agreements include competitive royalty and tax terms, stability clauses intended to protect those terms across changes in government administration, and rights to international arbitration. She described the arrangement as a “win-win-win” for Venezuela, investors and U.S. energy security.
Cash priorities remain unchanged Bonner said Chevron continues to follow longstanding financial priorities: growing its dividend, investing capital efficiently, strengthening its balance sheet and returning excess cash to shareholders through repurchases.
The company has already increased its dividend this year, continuing what Bonner said was a 39-year record of dividend growth. Chevron is funding projects intended to support 7% to 10% portfolio growth, while excess cash is currently being directed toward balance-sheet strengthening.
Chevron’s share-repurchase framework remains a range of $10 billion to $20 billion, Bonner said. She added that the company generally does not alter its buyback pace during periods of oil-price volatility, noting that oil prices had moved by about $35 over the preceding month.
Shale efficiencies and cost reductions Chevron has also shifted its U.S. shale and tight operations toward generating more free cash flow at stable production levels. Bonner said the company’s Permian Basin business grew from about 450,000 barrels per day in 2019 to roughly 1 million barrels per day, and its focus at that level is now on operational efficiency rather than volume growth.
The company reorganized its shale and tight operations last year, consolidating assets to share operating practices. Bonner cited improved reliability, artificial-lift optimization, real-time monitoring and faster drilling as contributors to capital efficiency. Chevron is drilling twice as fast as it was two years ago, she said.
Chevron delivered its $3 billion structural cost-reduction target six months ahead of schedule, Bonner said. About 70% of the savings came from efficiency gains, with the remainder tied to portfolio actions and changes to the operating model. The company is continuing to pursue savings through contract optimization, technology and areas of overlapping operations following its merger with Hess.
TCO performance and exploration options Bonner said Chevron’s Tengizchevroil, or TCO, asset is performing strongly following the startup of its third-generation plant. A turnaround that replaced components in a constrained processing column increased the plant’s oil capacity from 260,000 barrels per day to 320,000 barrels per day, an increase of more than 20%.
Chevron is now looking for incremental optimization opportunities in the field, supported by an integrated operations center using advanced process controls, artificial intelligence workflows and equipment-monitoring tools. Bonner said negotiations regarding TCO are progressing, with no “showstoppers,” though she did not provide a timeline.
On exploration, Bonner said Chevron has made six discoveries over the past two years, increased its acreage by 35% last year and added 10 million acres this year. The company has activity in Guyana, West Africa, the Eastern Mediterranean and the Middle East.
In Iraq, Chevron is negotiating on an exclusive basis around three opportunities: the West Qurna 2 producing asset, the adjacent Nassiriya field and potential participation in a pipeline that could provide an alternate route to market. Bonner said Chevron has a head-of-agreement addendum covering those items and hopes to advance discussions over the next year.
Bonner also highlighted Chevron’s recently announced gigawatt-scale power plant in the Permian. She said the company’s gas supplies in Texas, turbine availability, experience operating power-generation facilities and a 20-year power purchase agreement with a customer differentiate its position in the business.
About Chevron (NYSE:CVX)Chevron Corporation NYSE: CVX is an American multinational energy company engaged in virtually all aspects of the oil and gas industry. As an integrated energy firm, Chevron's core activities include upstream oil and natural gas exploration and production, midstream transportation and storage, downstream refining and marketing of fuels and lubricants, and petrochemical manufacturing through joint ventures and subsidiaries. The company markets fuels under brands such as Chevron, Texaco and Caltex and supplies a range of products and services to retail customers, industrial users and commercial fleets worldwide.
Chevron traces its corporate lineage to the early petroleum companies that eventually became Standard Oil of California and has evolved through significant mergers and restructurings, including the acquisitions of Gulf Oil and Texaco.
This instant news alert was generated by narrative science technology and financial data from MarketBeat in order to provide readers with the fastest reporting and unbiased coverage. Please send any questions or comments about this story to [email protected].
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Chevron (CVX +0.57%) has been on an impressive run, up 36.9% for the year as of Sept. 7. Despite its 2026 surge, though, Chevron's appeal has long been its dividend. Its current yield is around 3.4%, but over the past five years, it has averaged around 4%.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Chevron's current annual dividend payout is $7.12 ($1.78 quarterly), so if your goal is $5,000 in annual passive income, you'd need to own 702.25 shares. If you were starting from scratch, it'd cost you nearly $146,500 at Chevron's $208.60 trading price at the time of writing.
Chevron's fourth $1.78 quarterly dividend will be paid in December. After that, the annual dividend will almost certainly increase. Chevron has increased its annual dividend for 39 consecutive years, and I don't see that streak ending anytime soon. Short of a bizarre unforeseen event, Chevron is well on its way to becoming a Dividend King (a company with 50 or more consecutive years of dividend increases).
If Chevron were to increase its annual dividend by 5% to $7.48 ($1.87 quarterly), those same 702.25 shares would now pay out $5,252.80 annually. That's the beauty of owning a dividend stock that's committed to increasing its annual payout like Chevron. You get the current above-average yield and get to look forward to increasing annual payouts on top of it.
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In the second quarter, Chevron's adjusted free cash flow (which removes one-off events and accounting timing) was $15.4 billion, while it paid out only $3.5 billion in dividends. The payout ratio won't always be this high, but you can bet that Chevron will always have the cash and balance sheet to keep its dividend thriving.
Stefon Walters has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Chevron. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
AlphaGrep UK Ltd acquired a new position in Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX – Free Report) in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). The fund acquired 2,590 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock, valued at approximately $429,000.
A number of other institutional investors have also modified their holdings of the business. BlackRock Inc. bought a new stake in shares of Chevron during the second quarter valued at about $25,663,729,000. Norges Bank bought a new stake in shares of Chevron during the 4th quarter worth about $3,727,586,000. Bank of New York Mellon Corp acquired a new stake in shares of Chevron in the 2nd quarter worth approximately $2,378,114,000. State Street Corp lifted its stake in shares of Chevron by 9.1% in the 3rd quarter. State Street Corp now owns 152,605,988 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $23,698,184,000 after acquiring an additional 12,789,399 shares during the period. Finally, Legal & General Group Plc acquired a new stake in Chevron in the second quarter worth approximately $1,462,412,000. Institutional investors own 72.42% of the company’s stock.
More Chevron News Here are the key news stories impacting Chevron this week:
Positive Sentiment: Chevron’s planned investment of more than $7 billion in Venezuela is expected to expand production to approximately 600,000 barrels per day over five years. Investors view the Orinoco Belt opportunity as a potential source of significant production growth and attractive economics. Chevron Commits $7 Billion to Venezuela to Double Production Positive Sentiment: Analysts and fund managers remain constructive on Chevron, citing its scale, strong fundamentals, production growth following the Hess acquisition, dividend record and long-term exposure to energy demand. Rising crude prices above $90 per barrel have also supported sentiment toward major oil companies. Why Gabelli Remains Bullish on Chevron Positive Sentiment: A preliminary agreement covering Ghana’s South Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points block could provide Chevron with another international growth option, although commercial terms and ownership details have not been finalized. Chevron and Shell Sign Preliminary Ghana Agreement Neutral Sentiment: Chevron’s dividend remains a key attraction, with 39 consecutive years of increases. However, its sustainability would be tested if oil prices fall materially from current elevated levels. Chevron’s Dividend and Oil Price Risk Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that the Venezuela strategy will require substantial capital, face operational challenges and carry elevated political and execution risk. Critics also question whether the expansion can deliver its projected returns. Capital Requirements and Operational Challenges Negative Sentiment: Valuation concerns have become more important after the rally: Chevron is trading near the upper end of its recent range, while reported insider activity has consisted of sales rather than purchases. A decline in oil prices could further pressure earnings and the stock. Insider Activity at Chevron In related news, insider R. Pate sold 2,470 shares of the business’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $205.11, for a total value of $506,621.70. Following the completion of the sale, the insider owned 10,794 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,213,957.34. The trade was a 18.62% decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a filing with the SEC, which can be accessed through this link. Also, CEO Michael K. Wirth sold 317,100 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction on Friday, August 14th. The shares were sold at an average price of $200.46, for a total transaction of $63,565,866.00. Following the transaction, the chief executive officer owned 26,308 shares in the company, valued at $5,273,701.68. This represents a 92.34% decrease in their position. The SEC filing for this sale provides additional information. Over the last 90 days, insiders sold 1,152,582 shares of company stock worth $225,853,661. Corporate insiders own 0.56% of the company’s stock. Chevron Stock Down 0.1% Shares of NYSE:CVX opened at $208.48 on Monday. The firm has a 50 day simple moving average of $191.10 and a 200 day simple moving average of $189.82. Chevron Corporation has a 52 week low of $146.49 and a 52 week high of $214.71. The company has a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a current ratio of 1.25. The company has a market cap of $411.91 billion, a PE ratio of 19.99, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 0.61 and a beta of 0.50.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX – Get Free Report) last posted its quarterly earnings data on Friday, July 31st. The oil and gas company reported $6.06 earnings per share for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.55 by $0.51. The firm had revenue of $67.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $62.72 billion. Chevron had a net margin of 9.57% and a return on equity of 11.09%. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 57.4% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company posted $1.77 EPS. As a group, research analysts expect that Chevron Corporation will post 16.51 earnings per share for the current year.
Chevron Dividend Announcement The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 10th. Shareholders of record on Wednesday, August 19th will be given a $1.78 dividend. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, August 19th. This represents a $7.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 3.4%. Chevron’s dividend payout ratio is presently 68.26%.
Wall Street Analyst Weigh In A number of research analysts recently issued reports on CVX shares. Sanford C. Bernstein lifted their target price on Chevron from $204.00 to $209.00 and gave the stock a “market perform” rating in a report on Monday, August 3rd. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Chevron from a “hold (c)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research report on Tuesday, August 11th. Piper Sandler lifted their price objective on shares of Chevron from $207.00 to $243.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research note on Thursday. TD Cowen boosted their target price on shares of Chevron from $200.00 to $205.00 and gave the stock a “hold” rating in a report on Wednesday, August 5th. Finally, Bank of America increased their target price on shares of Chevron from $210.00 to $227.00 and gave the company a “buy” rating in a research note on Tuesday, July 28th. Twenty analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have assigned a Hold rating and one has given a Sell rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the company has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and a consensus price target of $211.35.
View Our Latest Stock Analysis on CVX
About Chevron (Free Report)
Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) is an American multinational energy company engaged in virtually all aspects of the oil and gas industry. As an integrated energy firm, Chevron’s core activities include upstream oil and natural gas exploration and production, midstream transportation and storage, downstream refining and marketing of fuels and lubricants, and petrochemical manufacturing through joint ventures and subsidiaries. The company markets fuels under brands such as Chevron, Texaco and Caltex and supplies a range of products and services to retail customers, industrial users and commercial fleets worldwide.
Chevron traces its corporate lineage to the early petroleum companies that eventually became Standard Oil of California and has evolved through significant mergers and restructurings, including the acquisitions of Gulf Oil and Texaco.
See Also Five stocks we like better than Chevron AI Token Costs Are Changing the Hardware vs. Software Debate 3 ETFs That Could Move as Rate Expectations Shift 3 Stocks With September Catalysts Investors Shouldn’t Ignore Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Stock Falls on Weak Comps Despite Margin Gains Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CVX? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX – Free Report).
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California State Teachers Retirement System lifted its stake in Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX – Free Report) by 19,425.5% in the second quarter, according to the company in its most recent disclosure with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The firm owned 432,663,934 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock after purchasing an additional 430,448,040 shares during the period. California State Teachers Retirement System owned about 21.90% of Chevron worth $71,718,374,000 at the end of the most recent quarter.
Other institutional investors and hedge funds have also recently bought and sold shares of the company. First PREMIER Bank boosted its stake in shares of Chevron by 0.8% in the 2nd quarter. First PREMIER Bank now owns 6,450 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $1,070,000 after buying an additional 50 shares during the period. Vanguard Capital Wealth Advisors grew its position in shares of Chevron by 1.8% during the second quarter. Vanguard Capital Wealth Advisors now owns 2,818 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $467,000 after buying an additional 50 shares in the last quarter. Cornerstone Advisory LLC increased its stake in shares of Chevron by 0.9% during the first quarter. Cornerstone Advisory LLC now owns 5,625 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock worth $1,164,000 after buying an additional 52 shares during the period. Compton Financial Group LLC raised its holdings in Chevron by 1.9% in the first quarter. Compton Financial Group LLC now owns 2,944 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $609,000 after acquiring an additional 56 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Quantum Portfolio Management LLC raised its holdings in Chevron by 2.7% in the first quarter. Quantum Portfolio Management LLC now owns 2,101 shares of the oil and gas company’s stock valued at $435,000 after acquiring an additional 56 shares in the last quarter. 72.42% of the stock is owned by institutional investors and hedge funds.
Wall Street Analysts Forecast Growth CVX has been the subject of a number of recent research reports. Jefferies Financial Group reiterated a “buy” rating and issued a $216.00 price target on shares of Chevron in a research note on Friday, July 10th. UBS Group restated a “buy” rating on shares of Chevron in a report on Tuesday, June 23rd. Morgan Stanley lifted their price objective on shares of Chevron from $210.00 to $218.00 and gave the stock an “overweight” rating in a research report on Wednesday, August 19th. Weiss Ratings upgraded shares of Chevron from a “hold (c)” rating to a “buy (b)” rating in a research note on Tuesday, August 11th. Finally, Barclays dropped their target price on Chevron from $216.00 to $208.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a report on Monday, August 17th. Twenty investment analysts have rated the stock with a Buy rating, five have issued a Hold rating and one has assigned a Sell rating to the company’s stock. According to data from MarketBeat.com, Chevron presently has a consensus rating of “Moderate Buy” and an average target price of $211.35.
Get Our Latest Analysis on CVX More Chevron News Here are the key news stories impacting Chevron this week:
Positive Sentiment: Chevron’s planned investment of more than $7 billion in Venezuela is expected to expand production to approximately 600,000 barrels per day over five years. Investors view the Orinoco Belt opportunity as a potential source of significant production growth and attractive economics. Chevron Commits $7 Billion to Venezuela to Double Production Positive Sentiment: Analysts and fund managers remain constructive on Chevron, citing its scale, strong fundamentals, production growth following the Hess acquisition, dividend record and long-term exposure to energy demand. Rising crude prices above $90 per barrel have also supported sentiment toward major oil companies. Why Gabelli Remains Bullish on Chevron Positive Sentiment: A preliminary agreement covering Ghana’s South Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points block could provide Chevron with another international growth option, although commercial terms and ownership details have not been finalized. Chevron and Shell Sign Preliminary Ghana Agreement Neutral Sentiment: Chevron’s dividend remains a key attraction, with 39 consecutive years of increases. However, its sustainability would be tested if oil prices fall materially from current elevated levels. Chevron’s Dividend and Oil Price Risk Negative Sentiment: Investors remain concerned that the Venezuela strategy will require substantial capital, face operational challenges and carry elevated political and execution risk. Critics also question whether the expansion can deliver its projected returns. Capital Requirements and Operational Challenges Negative Sentiment: Valuation concerns have become more important after the rally: Chevron is trading near the upper end of its recent range, while reported insider activity has consisted of sales rather than purchases. A decline in oil prices could further pressure earnings and the stock. Chevron Trading Down 0.1% Shares of Chevron stock opened at $208.48 on Monday. The company has a current ratio of 1.25, a quick ratio of 0.98 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 0.19. The company has a fifty day simple moving average of $191.10 and a 200-day simple moving average of $189.82. The stock has a market cap of $411.91 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 19.99, a PEG ratio of 0.61 and a beta of 0.50. Chevron Corporation has a 12-month low of $146.49 and a 12-month high of $214.71.
Chevron (NYSE:CVX – Get Free Report) last announced its quarterly earnings results on Friday, July 31st. The oil and gas company reported $6.06 EPS for the quarter, topping the consensus estimate of $5.55 by $0.51. Chevron had a net margin of 9.57% and a return on equity of 11.09%. The firm had revenue of $67.20 billion for the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $62.72 billion. During the same period last year, the business earned $1.77 EPS. Chevron’s revenue for the quarter was up 57.4% compared to the same quarter last year. On average, equities analysts forecast that Chevron Corporation will post 16.51 EPS for the current fiscal year.
Chevron Announces Dividend The company also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, September 10th. Stockholders of record on Wednesday, August 19th will be given a dividend of $1.78 per share. The ex-dividend date is Wednesday, August 19th. This represents a $7.12 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 3.4%. Chevron’s payout ratio is 68.26%.
Insider Transactions at Chevron In other news, insider Andrew Walz sold 16,800 shares of the stock in a transaction that occurred on Monday, August 17th. The stock was sold at an average price of $201.06, for a total value of $3,377,808.00. Following the completion of the sale, the insider directly owned 14 shares of the company’s stock, valued at approximately $2,814.84. This represents a 99.92% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The transaction was disclosed in a legal filing with the Securities & Exchange Commission, which can be accessed through this hyperlink. Also, insider R. Pate sold 2,470 shares of the firm’s stock in a transaction that occurred on Tuesday, August 18th. The stock was sold at an average price of $205.11, for a total transaction of $506,621.70. Following the transaction, the insider owned 10,794 shares in the company, valued at approximately $2,213,957.34. This trade represents a 18.62% decrease in their ownership of the stock. The disclosure for this sale is available in the SEC filing. Insiders sold a total of 1,152,582 shares of company stock valued at $225,853,661 over the last quarter. Company insiders own 0.56% of the company’s stock.
About Chevron (Free Report)
Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) is an American multinational energy company engaged in virtually all aspects of the oil and gas industry. As an integrated energy firm, Chevron’s core activities include upstream oil and natural gas exploration and production, midstream transportation and storage, downstream refining and marketing of fuels and lubricants, and petrochemical manufacturing through joint ventures and subsidiaries. The company markets fuels under brands such as Chevron, Texaco and Caltex and supplies a range of products and services to retail customers, industrial users and commercial fleets worldwide.
Chevron traces its corporate lineage to the early petroleum companies that eventually became Standard Oil of California and has evolved through significant mergers and restructurings, including the acquisitions of Gulf Oil and Texaco.
Read More Five stocks we like better than Chevron AI Token Costs Are Changing the Hardware vs. Software Debate 3 ETFs That Could Move as Rate Expectations Shift 3 Stocks With September Catalysts Investors Shouldn’t Ignore Ollie’s Bargain Outlet Stock Falls on Weak Comps Despite Margin Gains Want to see what other hedge funds are holding CVX? Visit HoldingsChannel.com to get the latest 13F filings and insider trades for Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX – Free Report).
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Chevron (CVX -1.29%) just signed a landmark deal to significantly expand its operations in Venezuela. The agreement, which positions the oil giant to double its output over the next five years, is a testament to its patience. "You have to hang in there until all the conditions come together: the technology, the economics, the markets, the politics," stated CEO Mike Wirth in a recent interview with Bloomberg. It stayed long after rivals ExxonMobil (XOM -1.69%) and ConocoPhillips (COP -1.08%) left, putting it in a position to capitalize on this major opportunity to help revitalize Venezuela's oil industry.
Here's a look at how Chevron's patience has proven to be a significant competitive advantage in Venezuela.
Image source: Getty Images.
Staying when things got toughExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips both left Venezuela in 2007 after the country nationalized their assets. Both have been seeking restitution, with ConocoPhillips winning an arbitration award of $12 billion that it has been trying to recover for years. The oil companies have been considering a return this year, as they each sent technical teams to evaluate potential investment opportunities. While ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods called Venezuela "uninvestable" this past January, President Trump recently said that Exxon would be going back into Venezuela.
However, both companies are far behind Chevron, which has maintained operations in the country for over 100 years. That's part of the company's patient strategy in the country. CEO Mike Wirth told Bloomberg: "You have to have some patience and look at this out over time and not become discouraged. Not pick up and leave when things are difficult." By hanging on during the tough times, which included dealing with hyperinflation, power outages, and unstable civil conditions, Chevron was able to pounce when the opportunity came around to participate in the revival of Venezuela's oil industry.
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Building on its legacyChevron has already been expanding its operations in Venezuela. In April, it consolidated its heavy-oil position in the country through an asset swap with Venezuela's national oil company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S. A. (PDVSA). It received an additional 13.21% working interest in Petroindependencia, increasing its stake in that joint venture (JV) to 49%. Additionally, its Petropiar JV (30% interest) was granted rights to develop the adjacent Ayacucho 8 area in the Orinoco Oil Belt. In exchange, Chevron gave up its interest in two gas licenses and in another non-operated joint venture. This trade enhances Chevron's ability to increase production by 50% by the end of 2028, from its recent rate of 280,000 barrels per day.
Now, Chevron is further building on this legacy position with additional enhancements to its JVs. Its new deal with Venezuela will provide it with more acreage in the Orinoco Belt. Petroindependencia received the rights to develop the adjacent Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas. Additionally, the deal includes enhanced fiscal, commercial, and legal terms that will support durable, competitive long-term investments in the country. Improved financial terms are something ExxonMobil has been seeking before it would agree to reenter the country.
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This increased position and improved terms support Chevron's new plan to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years. That would enable the company to more than double its production to around 600,000 barrels per day. Chevron estimates that its costs will be less than $20 a barrel, positioning it to drive strong earnings growth over the next five years from this investment.
However, while Wirth told Bloomberg that it has "good, high-quality resource positions" in Venezuela, "They're also sometimes not the easiest resource to produce." That's a risk investors should keep an eye on as the oil company ramps up its investment rate in the country. There's also the potential for renewed political risks, both in Venezuela and from future elections in the U.S.
Chevron's patience could pay massive dividendsChevron's decision to remain in Venezuela during the tough times is paying off. Its existing joint ventures in the country are receiving additional resources, which, together with improved terms, will enable the company to significantly increase production over the next five years. Given its low-cost resources, it could generate meaningful cash flow growth. It now has a huge head start over Exxon and ConocoPhillips, both of which are still evaluating whether to reenter the country. That could benefit the oil stock in the long run, as its low-cost growth in Venezuela could give it the fuel to deliver higher total returns than its rivals over the next few years.
Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, started the year at roughly $60 a barrel. Then the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East broke out, pushing crude oil prices to nearly $140 a barrel. After that spike, oil cooled off, losing around half of the gain before shifting higher again. Today, Brent crude is hovering around $95 per barrel.
What lies ahead for oil? In the near-term, the answer will be determined by the ongoing conflict in the Middle East. But if you are a long-term investor, the answer will be more of the same. Here's why that's so important to understand when selecting energy stocks to buy and hold.
Image source: Getty Images.
Oil is a commodity and prone to volatility This is the hard truth about oil prices: oil is a commodity subject to supply and demand. Right now, the price is affected by a geopolitical conflict, but historically, natural disasters, economic swings, industry overinvestment and underinvestment, and energy-industry disasters (oil spills, etc.) have all upended the supply and-demand balance. That, in turn, leads to oil prices moving higher and lower, often in a dramatic and sometimes rapid fashion.
In other words, the current volatility in oil prices is entirely normal for the energy sector. But, at the same time, oil is vital for the normal functioning of the modern world. That is clearly on display in the current conflict, as countries and companies draw down oil stockpiles to avoid economic disruption. That effort could be helping to keep oil prices lower than they otherwise would be, given the oil market's current fundamentals, for now.
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Chevron (CVX -1.29%) and ExxonMobil (XOM -1.69%), two of the world's largest energy companies, have both warned that oil prices may not be fully reflecting the on-the-ground situation in the energy sector. Higher oil prices may be in the cards, if that's the case. Most long-term investors should probably have some oil exposure, but they should own companies that can survive through the entire energy cycle.
Chevron and Exxon have proven their reliability Owning large, globally diversified oil giants like Chevron and Exxon is likely to be a great option for most investors. Each company has exposure to the entire energy value chain, which can help to soften the swings in oil prices. Also, both companies have incredibly strong balance sheets, with Chevron's debt-to-equity ratio at roughly 0.2x and Exxon posting an even more impressive 0.16x. They have stronger balance sheets than any of their closest integrated energy peers.
This is important because it allows Chevron and Exxon to take on debt during energy downturns, enabling them to continue supporting their businesses until the oil market recovers. Then the debt is reduced in preparation for the next downturn. Notably, this approach has also allowed each company to continue supporting its dividend through downturns. Exxon has increased its dividend annually for 43 years, while Chevron's streak is up to 38 years.
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If you are looking for energy exposure, focusing on reliable dividends rather than volatile energy prices will help you stick it out through the volatility. Right now, Exxon's dividend yield is 2.5%, and Chevron is offering 3.3%. Exxon is the larger of the two companies, but either one would be a good option for a long-term investor. Obviously, if you are trying to maximize the income your portfolio generates, Chevron will probably be the preferred option.
Better and worse times to buy All of that said, you might want to keep these two industry giants on your wish list for now. With oil prices at a fairly high level, Exxon and Chevron's stock prices are also relatively high (and their yields relatively low). If you are patient, history suggests another energy downturn is highly likely. At that point, Exxon and Chevron shares will likely be cheaper and offer higher yields. This isn't a suggestion to time the oil market, but a realistic statement of industry dynamics. Often, the best time to buy energy stocks like Exxon and Chevron is when short-term-minded investors are scared and indiscriminately selling.
SummaryEnergy remains my top sector for 2026, with structural underweighting in the S&P 500 and compelling long-term rotation potential.Oil market dynamics are complex: inventory drawdowns, geopolitical risks, and inflation sensitivity create both upside and macroeconomic hazards.My preferred energy picks—TPL, VNOM, CNQ, CVX, and WBI—offer high margins, inflation protection, and resilience across oil price scenarios.I avoid positioning solely on war risk; my thesis favors secular growth, inventory trends, and selective exposure to income and growth vehicles.Looking for a helping hand in the market? Members of Main Street Alpha get exclusive ideas and guidance to navigate any climate. Learn More » grynold/iStock via Getty Images
Introduction I have been bullish on energy. That’s not a surprise to most of you. On December 24, I wrote a public piece titled “Energy Is, By Far, My Favorite Sector For 2026.” And
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Analyst’s Disclosure: I/we have a beneficial long position in the shares of TPL, CNQ either through stock ownership, options, or other derivatives. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.
Seeking Alpha's Disclosure: Past performance is no guarantee of future results. No recommendation or advice is being given as to whether any investment is suitable for a particular investor. Any views or opinions expressed above may not reflect those of Seeking Alpha as a whole. Seeking Alpha is not a licensed securities dealer, broker or US investment adviser or investment bank. Our analysts are third party authors that include both professional investors and individual investors who may not be licensed or certified by any institute or regulatory body.
Building a dividend portfolio to match a six-figure salary sounds straightforward until a surging stock price quietly raises your capital target and a monthly payout fund starts returning your own money back to you.
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Replacing a $95,000 salary with dividends is a capital problem before it is an investment problem. At a blended portfolio yield near 4%, you need about $2.4 million. At 5%, roughly $1.9 million. At 6%, closer to $1.6 million. The lineup below, built around VYM at 30%, CVX at 30%, and UTG at 40%, is designed to sit somewhere in that middle band while paying you monthly and quarterly in real cash.
Three-Holding Income Lineup: VYM, CVX, UTG The conservative anchor is Vanguard High Dividend Yield ETF (NYSEARCA:VYM), a broad basket of large-cap dividend payers whose top exposures include Broadcom, JPMorgan Chase, Exxon Mobil, Johnson & Johnson, and AbbVie. VYM pays quarterly, with an annualized forward dividend of $3.92 per share against a recent price near $164. Typical distribution yield sits in the low-3% range.
The dividend-growth sleeve is Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction). The company just paid a $1.78 quarterly dividend, up from $1.71 in 2025 and $1.63 in 2024. Trailing yield sits near 3.1%, supported by $18.10 billion of free cash flow in Q2 FY26 and a 20-year West Texas power purchase agreement with Microsoft.
The income engine is Reaves Utility Income Fund (NYSE:UTG), a closed-end fund that pays monthly. Its monthly distribution recently increased to $0.21 from $0.20, giving an annualized forward of $2.52 per share at a price near $38. That places UTG’s headline yield in the mid-to-high single digits, well above the two equity holdings.
Why a Rising Chevron Makes Your Plan More Expensive Chevron is up 41% year-to-date and 37% over the past year, with news of a $7 billion Venezuela expansion plan pushing shares toward record highs. That is good if you already own it. It is bad if you are still buying, because yield is the dividend divided by the price. As CVX climbs, its yield compresses, which drags the blended portfolio yield lower and raises the capital you need to hit $95,000. A stock going up makes an income plan more expensive, which is counterintuitive, and it is exactly why the entry price matters as much as security selection.
UTG Is Doing the Heavy Lifting. Read the Fine Print. The utility fund UTG is a closed-end fund, which means it trades at a market price that can drift above or below the actual value of its underlying holdings. Buying when it trades at a premium is a permanent headwind, while buying at a discount gives you a lasting advantage. Make it a point to check that before you buy.
Closed-end funds often use leverage to boost their distributions. That borrowed money lifts income when markets are strong but magnifies losses when they turn, and it makes the fund more sensitive to interest rates than an unlevered utility ETF. UTG’s distributions can also include a return of capital, which lowers your cost basis rather than paying you out of actual earnings. Pull the fund’s Section 19 notices and verify the composition.
Then there is the concentration issue. This lineup is 30% energy and 40% utilities. You are making a focused bet on regulated power, infrastructure, and integrated oil, with VYM providing the only real spread across financials, health care, and consumer staples.
Tax Layer Most Pre-Retirees Underweight VYM and CVX distributions are generally qualified dividends, taxed at long-term capital gains rates (0%, 15%, or 20% federal, depending on bracket). UTG’s distributions vary in character: portions may be qualified, ordinary, or a return of capital. Two portfolios paying identical headline yields can leave you with very different after-tax income.
Account location changes the answer materially. In a Roth or traditional IRA, character does not matter; in a taxable brokerage, it dictates how much capital you actually need to net $95,000. Model both.
What You Are Really Signing Up For To replace a $95,000 salary with this lineup, plan on somewhere in the neighborhood of $1.6 to $2.0 million invested, depending on where blended yield lands the day you build the position. If you want the full mix, payment calendar, and withdrawal order for turning a lump sum into monthly income, we laid the whole method out in a free guide. A few actions before you commit capital:
Target your spending rather than your gross salary. Payroll taxes and retirement contributions are gone in retirement, so the target income is usually lower than the paycheck. Check UTG’s premium or discount to net asset value on the day you buy, and review the most recent Section 19 notice for return-of-capital content. Stress-test the plan for a Chevron dividend cut and a UTG distribution reduction at the same time, and confirm the surviving income still covers essential expenses. Dividend streams can fluctuate, and inflation over a 30-year retirement will erode any fixed stream that does not grow. Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
If there's one sector that's littered with political boogeymen, it's the energy sector, oil producers in particular. That status is arguably amplified in a midterm election year in which affordability, including gas prices, is a marquee issue.
So it's not surprising that some bellwether energy stocks have political targets on their backs. Chevron (CVX -1.29%) and ExxonMobil (XOM -1.69%) learned that the hard way in early August when President Trump accused the largest domestic oil companies of making too much money off high oil prices caused by the war in Iran. He pushed both corporations to cut the prices consumers are paying at their local gas stations.
Chevron is still a buy despite barbs from the White House. Image source: Getty Images.
The president's sharp words for Chevron came just three months after California's Democratic governor, Gavin Newsom, urged drivers in his state to boycott Chevron stations over high prices. So it'd appear this company is in bipartisan political crosshairs, but it's likely a case of bark being worse than bite, and it's not enough of a reason to sell this high-flying oil stock. Actually, I'm a buyer of Chevron because the long-term fundamental story may be too good to pass up.
The other country boosting the Chevron case In terms of recent price action, Chevron stock is up 5.64% since the president made his comments, indicating that the will of the markets, not politicians, is winning out.
Drilling down on more durable reasons to consider Chevron today, there's the Venezuela catalyst. Last week, the White House announced a deal with the South American nation that essentially grants the U.S. control over 65 billion barrels of oil. As one of my Foolish colleagues rightly points out, that's a potential windfall for Chevron.
Chevron is validating that thesis because, on Sept. 1, reports emerged that the oil major is close to securing an agreement granting it access to another pair of fields in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt, one of the most oil-dense regions in the world.
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Venezuela's state-run oil company previously estimated that the Chevron unit operating in the country could pump up to 400,000 barrels per day when its Orinoco holdings fully ramp up. The addition of two more fields could represent a major increase to that estimate. In other words, Chevron may be rewarded for playing the long game in Venezuela. The company continued operating there over the years while many rivals departed, citing unfavorable political conditions.
A long-term winner Politicians' targets in corporate America come and go, as do the politicians themselves, so the gas-price rhetoric isn't a headwind for Chevron. Price action confirms as much. In addition, Chevron's other long-term attributes are compelling.
Confirming the company isn't reliant on a single country or region, it notched record output in the U.S. in the second quarter while worldwide production increased 20% year over year. The latter point is noteworthy, given that, by the company's own admission, "geopolitical uncertainty" loomed large in the quarter.
Likewise, political chatter doesn't diminish Chevron's $1.5 billion in savings (in just one quarter) from the Hess acquisition, nor should that rhetoric overshadow a 20-year data center power deal with Microsoft in West Texas. I'll let the pollsters deal with politics while I enjoy my Chevron stake.
The global energy market has been upended by the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East, with reduced supply driving up oil and natural gas prices. However, companies like Chevron (CVX -1.29%), while benefiting from today's high energy prices, think in decades, not days, weeks, or months. In fact, volatility is the norm for the energy sector. Management's long-term approach is why Chevron is actively looking to invest in the conflict-torn Middle East. But what does this really mean for dividend investors?
Chevron has a great dividend track record There are many reasons to like Chevron as an investment. For example, it is large and geographically diverse, with exposure to the entire energy value chain. But one of the biggest is the company's consistency, which is highlighted by a 38-year streak of annual dividend increases. Add in a well-above market 3.5% yield, and the story gets even better for dividend lovers seeking to add some energy exposure to their portfolios.
Image source: Getty Images.
Chevron's willingness to look beyond the conflict that is raging today is part of the story, too. In fact, it is planning to invest in Iraq and hopes to help build a pipeline that will allow energy companies to avoid traversing the Strait of Hormuz. Both could help the company maintain its impressive dividend growth streak, but they aren't the real dividend growth story investors need to be watching.
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The real dividend growth story is Chevron's ability to think and act with a long-term mindset. The Iraq investment and pipeline are merely examples of decisions that allow the company to keep increasing its dividend. But what enables such decisions in the first place is the company's financial strength, as highlighted by its impressive balance sheet. At the end of the second quarter of 2026, its debt-to-equity ratio was 0.2x, second only to ExxonMobil (XOM -1.69%) in its peer group.
Watch Chevron's balance sheet if you own it for the dividend The key is that Chevron has the financial strength to make big, long-term investments at just about any time in the energy cycle. And, notably, when energy prices are low, it has the leeway to take on debt to fund its business and dividend. When energy prices recover, as they always have historically, it reduces leverage ahead of the next downturn. It is this approach that has built Chevron's 38-year dividend streak, and that will extend it, not any single investment. So, if you own Chevron for the dividend, make sure you keep a close eye on the energy giant's balance sheet.
A lot of attention will be on Apple (AAPL) next week as the Mag 7 giant holds its "Surprise and Shine" event on Wednesday, September 9. @Stockstotrade's Tim Bohen calls the Mag 7 giant a "sleeper AI" hit that will use its new technology suite to amplify software capabilities.
Finding strong, market-beating stocks with a positive earnings outlook becomes easier with the Focus List, a top feature of the Zacks Premium portfolio service.
Chevron has raised its dividend 39 straight years, but the real test was never a bull market in crude. Find out what the 2020 stress test and two new revenue streams reveal about whether that streak survives the next oil…
Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction) shareholders are set to collect another $1.78 per share quarterly payment on September 10, 2026, extending a streak most oil majors envy. The check is the third at the current rate, which reflects a 4% raise announced at the start of 2026, marking the 39th consecutive annual increase. With shares at $212.21 and up 42.32% year to date, the current yield sits at roughly 3.08%.
For a commodity-linked payer, the check looks easy with Brent at $104. The real question is what happens when crude rolls over. That answer is where Chevron earns its scorecard.
Dividend Scorecard: A Grade, With an Asterisk Q2 2026 delivered adjusted EPS of $6.06 on revenue of $67.20 billion, up 51.43% year-over-year. Free cash flow hit $18.095 billion against a quarterly dividend outlay near $3.504 billion. Full-year 2025 produced $33.94 billion in operating cash flow versus $12.75 billion in dividend payout. Balance sheet: net debt to cash flow from operations of 0.6 times after more than $8 billion in debt reduction last quarter.
FY2025 EPS came in at $6.63 while the annualized forward dividend runs $7.12. On trailing earnings, that reads over 100%. On free cash flow, it clears comfortably. Grade: A minus. Elite streak, elite coverage in a good tape, but the ratio compresses fast when crude cracks.
2020 Stress Test You Should Actually Care About When WTI collapsed to $36.97 in November 2020, Chevron generated only $10.6 billion of operating cash flow for the full year and paid out $9.7 billion in dividends. Q2 2020 operating cash flow was just $80 million against a $2.394 billion dividend. Chevron leaned on the balance sheet, protected the payment, and kept the streak alive. That is the resilience the current management team is being paid to replicate.
What Actually Changes the Math This Cycle The Hess integration delivered $1.5 billion in synergies six months ahead of schedule, and management called Hess free cash flow “roughly double the incremental dividends”. Also, Project Kilby, a 20-year take-or-pay power purchase agreement with Microsoft covering 2.67 gigawatts, is designed to throw off “long duration contracted cash flows that are independent of commodity price cycles.”
Mike Wirth summarized the philosophy plainly: “We’ll always focus on value over growth.” For dividend investors, the read is straightforward. The payment is safer than the ratio suggests, but only because Chevron has, again and again, chosen the check over almost everything else. Streaks like this one are the whole reason we built a free Dividend Kings screen ranking the longest-running raisers by valuation today.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Chris Lange
Chris Lange is a writer for 24/7 Wall St., based in Houston. He has covered financial markets over the past decade with an emphasis on healthcare, tech, and IPOs. During this time, he has published thousands of articles with insightful analysis across these complex fields. Currently, Lange's focus is on military and geopolitical topics. Lange's work has been quoted or mentioned in Forbes, The New York Times, Business Insider, USA Today, MSN, Yahoo, The Verge, Vice, The Intelligencer, Quartz, Nasdaq, The Motley Fool, Fox Business, International Business Times, The Street, Seeking Alpha, Barron’s, Benzinga, and many other major publications. A graduate of Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, Lange majored in business with a particular focus on investments. He has previous experience in the banking industry and startups.
The deepwater agreement opens another frontier without yet revealing ownership, spending or commercial production terms. Summary
Chevron secured exploration optionality before committing development capital.
Chevron CVX, the integrated energy heavyweight, secured a fresh route into Ghana's deepwater oil patch while its shares traded at $212.70 on Sept. 3. Reuters reported Thursday that Chevron and Shell signed a nonbinding agreement covering potential production rights in the South Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points block.
Big opportunity. No guarantees. The companies still need to hammer out the work program, ownership split and investment terms. Chevron has gained an option, not a producing asset. Deepwater discoveries can deliver enormous reserves, but expensive drilling, infrastructure demands and fiscal conditions will decide whether Ghana produces profitable barrels or another costly science project.
Chevron generated $15.4 billion in adjusted free cash flow last quarter, giving management the muscle to explore without begging the capital markets for help. The valuation picture is less forgiving: at $212.70, the stock stood 32.21% above its $160.88 GF Value estimate. Ghana adds another growth card, but this premium leaves little room for sloppy capital allocation.
Disclosures I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and have no plans to buy any new positions in the stocks mentioned within the next 72 hours.
A Bloomberg economist just compared Chevron's blockbuster Venezuela oil deal to a Cold War coup that looked like a triumph for 25 years before costing the U.S. one of its biggest crude suppliers almost overnight. History has a pattern here,…
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Although Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction) shares have climbed to a 52-week high on the back of a $7 billion Venezuela expansion, to above $214 per share, Wall Street’s memory tends to be shorter than the deals it finances. The stock closed at $211.78, up 38.8% year to date, and traders appear to be treating its Venezuela Orinoco Belt agreement as a straightforward production add.
But Bloomberg Economics’ Chris Kennedy went on air September 2 and framed the arrangement in language that should give any long-term holder pause. Kennedy said “this was all about oil,” comparing the U.S. and Venezuela structure to the 1953 US-backed coup against Iran’s democratically elected Mohammad Mosaddegh, which reversed his nationalization of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, later BP.
The parallel is uncomfortably clean. As Kennedy described it during the Bloomberg Businessweek segment, the current arrangement involves a Pentagon equity stake in a private company granted a 100-year lease to develop nearly 17 strategic oil fields. The U.S. also receives the right to purchase 20% of the joint venture’s production at cost, below market price. Chevron CEO Mike Wirth has called it the largest financial commitment from a major oil company since Nicolás Maduro’s ouster and said the development is expected to double Chevron’s operations in the country. Marketplace’s Kimberly Adams reported that the plan targets roughly 600,000 barrels a day within five years.
What 1953 Actually Bought, and What It Cost Operation Ajax worked, at first. The 1953 coup restored the Shah, reversed Mosaddegh’s nationalization, and gave Western majors decades of favorable Iranian crude. For 25 years the arrangement looked like a geopolitical bargain. Then 1979 arrived. The Islamic Revolution swept out the Shah, renationalized Iranian oil, and expropriated Western assets. Anti-American sentiment cemented into state policy, and the U.S. lost one of its largest imported-crude suppliers almost overnight. The lesson Wall Street has never fully absorbed is that oil concessions tied to unpopular regimes tend to expire when the regime does, not when the lease says they do.
Bloomberg’s Kennedy’s warning tracks that history closely. He argued the Venezuela structure “could rekindle nationalist and anti-American sentiment” and called a democratic transition in Caracas “a matter of when, not if.” A 100-year lease is a long time to bet against that pattern.
Why the Market Is Ignoring the Precedent The market has plenty of reasons to focus on the immediate payoff. CVX has climbed 42.82% year to date, 36% over one year, and 165.4% over five years amid extraordinary near-term fundamentals. Chevron’s Q2 2026 report, filed July 31, 2026, showed adjusted EPS of $6.06, revenue of $67.20 billion (+51.4% YoY), and net income of $12.07 billion (+384.8% YoY).
Free cash flow hit $18.10 billion, an increase of 272%. Worldwide production reached 4.07 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, while U.S. upstream production set a record at 2.08 million barrels of oil equivalent per day. Brent averaged $104 per barrel, versus $68 a year earlier, and WTI stood at $91.48 per barrel on September 1.
Chevron has also put its cash to work aggressively: $3.117 billion in buybacks in Q2 2026, a 39th consecutive annual dividend increase (the kind of multi-decade streak we screened for in our free Dividend Kings guide, here), and $8.41 billion in debt reduction inside the quarter. The Hess acquisition, closed in 2025, is producing $1.5 billion in synergies within one year of closing. Nothing in that scorecard reads like a company priced for expropriation risk. You can see the Q2 disclosure directly in the company’s SEC filing.
Valuation Gut Check Meets Political Half-Life Here, the historical mirror becomes sharper. Chevron trades at a P/E of 28.9, a P/FCF of 25, and a free cash flow yield of 3.99%, with a market cap of $414.9 billion. Integrated majors historically trade closer to the low-teens on earnings during comparable oil-price regimes.
Investors are paying a premium multiple for a company whose largest new development sits under a lease that, if the Iran comparison holds, has a shelf life measured by the political durability of the counterparty. Chris Kennedy noted Venezuela currently averages 1.1 million barrels per day, well below its peak of 3.5 million barrels from nearly three decades ago. The upside case requires the current arrangement to last.
Markers to Watch as the 100-Year Lease Ages Three signals will show how much weight that century-long promise can bear. First, whether Caracas ratifies the lease through any body a successor government would recognize as legitimate. Second, whether the 20%-at-cost offtake clause survives scrutiny inside Venezuela, where subsidized exports to the U.S. read very differently on Caracas television than on a Bloomberg terminal. Third, whether Chevron’s next 10-Q quantifies the Venezuela commitment as a discrete asset, which would let analysts model an impairment scenario. The Q2 filing already flags “geopolitical uncertainty in Venezuela operations” as a named risk.
Over the long term, the benchmark S&P 500 has absorbed oil-sector expropriations before and headed higher in the decades that followed, and Chevron’s record on dividends, buybacks, and structural cost reductions is genuinely elite. The open question for CVX shareholders paying a 52-week-high price is whether they are being compensated for a risk the 1953 Iran playbook says typically arrives on someone else’s schedule.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Key Takeaways Higher oil prices and softer jobs data create a challenging stagflationary setup for U.S. equities.Chevron could benefit from higher oil prices as geopolitical tensions raise supply-disruption concerns.JPMorgan and UnitedHealth offer potential resilience as rates stay elevated and growth concerns rise. September is opening with an unusually difficult macro setup for U.S. equities. Brent crude remains above $90 a barrel, the 10-year Treasury yield recently climbed to 4.82% and the market is bracing for tomorrow’s August jobs report, as investors reassess the Federal Reserve’s next move. On Sept. 3, the 10-year yield eased to about 4.77% after New York Fed President John Williams said an immediate rate hike may not be necessary.
Markets nevertheless assigned roughly a 60% probability of a 25-basis-point rate hike at the Fed’s Sept. 16 meeting, according to CME-based FedWatch data.
Image Source: Trading Economics
Against this backdrop, investors should expect greater sector rotation in September, with energy, financials and defensive healthcare better positioned than rate-sensitive growth and discretionary stocks. Chevron (CVX - Free Report) , JPMorgan Chase (JPM - Free Report) and UnitedHealth Group (UNH - Free Report) stand out as three stocks to consider across these sectors. Let’s delve deeper.
September Equity-Market SetupThe biggest risk is a stagflationary mix. Higher oil prices threaten to revive inflation just as labor-market momentum is weakening. Payroll processor ADP reported only 38,000 private-sector jobs added in August, pointing to continued softness in labor-market conditions. Meanwhile, multiple sources expect Friday’s nonfarm payrolls report to show the addition of roughly 53,000 jobs.
That leaves the Fed facing a difficult trade-off. A weak payroll number could increase pressure to ease policy, but an oil-driven inflation rebound could limit its ability to do so. Conversely, stronger employment could support corporate earnings while keeping rates elevated. This asymmetric setup argues for companies whose earnings can withstand either outcome.
Sectors to AvoidInformation technology and other high-duration growth stocks warrant selectivity. The 10-year yield near 4.8% raises the discount rate applied to future cash flows, while higher financing costs can put pressure on richly valued companies. September's seasonal weakness also tends to expose crowded technology positions.
Consumer discretionary is another area to approach cautiously. A softer labor market, elevated energy costs and still-high borrowing costs can weigh on household purchasing power and discretionary spending.
3 Sectors to Focus OnEnergy- Chevron: Energy offers a clear way to benefit from higher oil prices. Brent crude closed at around $95.63 a barrel on Sept. 2, as geopolitical tensions continue to raise concerns about supply disruptions through the Strait of Hormuz.
For Chevron, one of the largest publicly traded oil and gas companies, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for 2026 earnings per share (EPS) is $16.24, implying 122.8% projected growth over 2025 and a long-term estimated growth rate of 20.7%. Its forward 12-month P/E is 10.85X, discounted compared to the S&P 500’s 19.91X. CVX currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Financials - JPMorgan Chase: Financials can offer relative resilience if interest rates remain elevated, while improving loan demand and capital-markets activity provide additional earnings support. JPMorgan, one of the biggest global banks, raised its 2026 net interest income (NII) outlook to approximately $105.5 billion from its previous target of about $103 billion.
The higher outlook was supported by strong balance-sheet growth, with average loans up 10% and average deposits up 7% year over year in the second quarter. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for JPM’s 2026 EPS is $24.93, implying 22.6% projected growth over 2025 and a long-term estimated growth rate of 10%. Its forward 12-month P/E is 14.38X. CVX currently carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).
Image Source: Zacks Investment Research
Healthcare - UnitedHealth Group: Healthcare can be a defensive choice if weaker labor-market data raises concerns about economic growth. UnitedHealth has the largest and most diverse membership base within the managed-care organization market, which gives it significant competitive advantages.
The consensus estimate for UNH’s 2026 EPS is $19.82, implying 21.2% projected growth over 2025 and a long-term estimated growth rate of 13.4%. Its forward 12-month P/E is 18.46X. UNH currently carries a Zacks Rank #2. You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.
Washington just handed a 100-year lease on tens of billions of barrels of Venezuelan oil to a private company nobody has heard of, while Chevron quietly hit a 52-week high on a completely separate deal. The two stories are getting…
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Venezuela reportedly lays claim to over 300 billion barrels of proven oil reserves, and the U.S. has set its sights on more of them.
Bloomberg News correspondent Tyler Kendall reported from Caracas this week that the headline prize of Washington’s Venezuela deal, a 100-year lease on 17 strategic oil fields holding a claimed 65 billion barrels, went to a private, non-supermajor bidder: North American Blue Energy Partners, a private company that cannot develop the fields alone and has yet to sign on producing partners. Meanwhile, Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction) stock just printed a fresh 52-week high at $212.79 on a separate, parallel Venezuela commitment. The two developments deserve to be evaluated separately.
What Washington Actually Signed Kendall’s on-the-ground reporting laid out the mechanics. The US government is taking an equity stake in the private joint venture and securing the right to purchase 20% of the offtake at cost, below market, through a swap mechanism designed to help refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright told Bloomberg that Venezuelan production, already up 25%, with exports up 50%, could double by the end of this decade from the current 1.1 million barrels per day; that output is still far below the 3.5 million peak from nearly three decades ago.
The catch is that North American Blue Energy Partners cannot develop the 17 fields alone. It must bring in other producers, including some fields previously operated by Russian, Chinese, or smaller local companies. Constitutional questions surrounding Venezuela’s competitive-bidding requirements remain unresolved, although the State Department says the deal was fully vetted.
Chevron’s Separate Lane Chevron is executing a distinct, older track, separate from the 65-billion-barrel lease. On the Q2 2026 call, CEO Mike Wirth described Venezuela as one of Chevron’s “special situations,” revealing, “We’re in negotiations right now to try to improve the fiscal terms and enable more investment in Venezuela.”
Management also said the company operates three Venezuelan joint ventures and has bolstered production from those agreements from 40,000 to 250,000 barrels per day, with full debt recovery expected by early 2027. Chevron’s Q1 2026 growth-initiative slate specifically listed an agreement to expand its heavy oil interest in Petroindependencia and develop the adjacent Ayacucho 8 area, alongside its long-running Petropiar operations with PDVSA.
Wirth’s framing in the Q4 2025 8-K: “We have been a part of Venezuela’s past for more than a century. We remain committed to its present.” That century of ground presence is what separates Chevron’s exposure from the newer, splashier lease.
Economist Parallel Investors Should Weigh Not everyone is convinced. Bloomberg Economics’ Chris Kennedy compared the deal structure to the 1953 US-backed coup in Iran, warning it could rekindle nationalist and anti-American sentiment and affirming the view that “this was all about oil.” Iran’s oil was nationalized in 1979. Kennedy called a democratic transition in Venezuela “a matter of when, not if,” raising real questions about the durability of a 100-year lease under a future elected government. Wirth has emphasized contractual protections including dispute resolution and tax and royalty regime guarantees, though those provisions face a hostile-precedent problem.
What The Market Is Actually Pricing CVX is up 39.5% year to date and 35% over one year, backed by tangible Q2 2026 numbers: adjusted EPS of 6.06, revenue of $67.2 billion up 51.43% year over year, and free cash flow of $18.1 billion. The stock trades at a forward P/E of 15 with a 3.4% dividend yield backed by 39 consecutive annual increases.
Hess synergies, Permian scale, Guyana’s Stabroek block, and a 20-year Microsoft (NASDAQ:MSFT) power purchase agreement for 2.67 GW in West Texas are doing the heavy lifting. Venezuela is optionality on top of the core thesis. Investors pricing the 52-week high should separate the 65-billion-barrel headline from what Chevron actually holds itself.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Chevron just placed a multi-billion dollar bet on Venezuelan oil within days of a historic U.S. reserve deal, moving far faster than energy insiders predicted and becoming the first major to put real money behind a country whose oil sector…
CNBC’s Becky Quick reported on Wednesday, September 2, that Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction) is expanding its position in Venezuela through joint ventures, with the deal landing within days of the U.S.-Venezuela reserve arrangement that Washington disclosed last week.
According to Quick, “[Chevron is] saying that it is expanding its position in Venezuela with joint ventures. As part of the agreements, it will gain existing acreage where it’s established a position.” She added: “Its joint venture will invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, and it plans to double production to approximately 600,000 barrels a day.“
This investment plan targets production over a five-year horizon. Announced targets remain subject to execution risk, political developments, and the physical realities of restarting output in a country whose oil sector has been effectively closed to Western majors.
Chevron Is Moving Faster Than One Former Executive Expected On August 28, former Chevron Africa and Latin America president Ali Moshiri argued that Venezuelan oil is a good solution for American energy security because it avoids the Strait of Hormuz, the Red Sea, and the Black Sea chokepoints. He advocated for public-private partnership because heavy and extra-heavy crude requires specialized technology the country lost after 15 years outside global markets.
Moshiri predicted the majors would move slowly on entry protocols while smaller and midsize firms moved faster. A more than $7 billion commitment from a supermajor within days of the reserve announcement cuts against that timeline.
On August 31, CNBC’s Brian Sullivan reported that Venezuelan national production has fallen from roughly 3.2 million barrels per day in 1997 to about 1.2 million today, said infrastructure is dilapidated, and cautioned that meaningful extraction is years away. Sullivan also flagged that majors would likely demand multi-year security guarantees before committing billions.
Chevron Is the First Major to Put Real Money Behind the Venezuela Deal On August 28, President Trump announced a reported deal involving a 25-year lease of 65 billion barrels of proven reserves, with the U.S. controlling 55% and reportedly $100 billion-plus in U.S. energy company investment, with Chevron, Exxon and ConocoPhillips named as prospective participants. Sullivan noted the physical and legal structure was still unknown. Chevron’s announcement today is the first concrete corporate commitment towards that $100 billion number.
Venezuela is familiar territory for Chevron.
In the Q4 2025 earnings release, CEO Mike Wirth said Chevron had “been a part of Venezuela’s past for more than a century” and stood ready to help the country “build a better future while strengthening U.S. energy and regional security.”
Key Takeaways Chevron’s $7 billion commitment gives Venezuela’s oil reopening its first major corporate backing. But doubling production will require much more than capital, with deteriorated infrastructure, security guarantees and execution risk standing between today’s announcement and 600,000 barrels per day.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Oil majors Shell (SHEL.L) and Chevron (CVX.N) have signed a non-binding agreement for the acquisition of production rights over Ghana's South Deepwater Tano Cape Three Points oil and gas block, Ghana's energy minister said.
The memorandum of understanding with Ghana National Petroleum Corporation, signed on Tuesday, comes as the West African country looks to encourage investment and help reverse declining output.
Shell said the agreement provides a framework for further negotiations of final license terms, and is subject to relevant approvals. Chevron confirmed the MoU, saying it is "constantly reviewing new global exploration opportunities".
The government is currently undertaking a comprehensive review of its legal and fiscal framework for upstream petroleum activities.
Addressing an energy conference in Accra this week, Energy Minister John Jinapor told delegates that among reforms proposed was reducing GNPC's initial interest in upstream projects — which does not carry financial obligations — to 10% from 15%.
Other steps include introducing a simpler tax regime and adopting differentiated royalty treatment based on water depths.
Ghana's crude oil production dropped from a peak of 71.44 million barrels in 2019 to 48.25 million barrels in 2024, according to the U.S. International Trade Administration.
However, major new investments in the Jubilee and TEN fields announced by Kosmos Energy (KOS.N) and partners including Tullow Oil (TLW.L) could fund the drilling of up to 20 new wells and bolster oil and gas output.
Chevron remains a 'Strong Buy,' driven by robust Q2 results, record U.S. production, and strategic positioning amid elevated oil prices. Production surged 20% YoY to 4,070 MBOED, with upstream and downstream segments both delivering explosive earnings growth. The Venezuela expansion, with $7B committed over five years, is poised to double production in the country, supporting long-term value despite infrastructure risks.
Chevron Corporation offers an attractive combination of production growth, strong cash flow, and a relatively low valuation, supporting a buy rating. The Hess acquisition enhances CVX's growth profile, adding high-quality assets like Guyana's Stabroek Block and boosting production and efficiency via $1.5B in planned synergies. Management targets 2-3% annual production and over 10% adjusted free cash flow growth through 2030, even at $70 Brent, while maintaining significant shareholder returns.
Middle Eastern supply-chain risks are adding urgency to renewed U.S. engagement with Venezuela’s vast energy reserves, potentially creating new opportunities for domestic supermajors with the scale and expertise to participate. As capital flows aggressively into this geopolitical divergence play, peak operational leverage and fortified balance sheets position key upstream companies for significant upside.
Investors watching global Brent prices spike on war fears might be missing the underlying domestic energy play. A structural shift in physical energy markets is underway, one that bypasses traditional, conflict-prone supply routes and anchors directly into the world's largest oil reserves. The geopolitical risk premium on oil may be climbing rapidly, but the true wealth generation is happening behind closed doors through foreign policy maneuvering. Understanding the fundamentals behind this transition illuminates a highly lucrative, multi-year runway for integrated energy equities.
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The Geopolitical Pivot: Anchoring the Supply ChainThe escalation in the Middle East is rewriting the risk models for global energy supply. With fresh airstrikes shifting the geopolitical risk premium, the vulnerability of the Strait of Hormuz is causing Western powers to adopt a strategic hedge. The unpriced catalyst driving recent market momentum is the U.S. Department of War's active pursuit of an approximately 35% stake in Venezuelan oil rights through third-party intermediaries.
This maneuver effectively opens a pool of Latin American reserves to backfill depleted domestic Strategic Petroleum Reserves. For investors, this creates an asymmetric risk-to-reward profile. Global oil prices remain elevated due to geopolitical instability, while select domestic companies gain government-backed extraction rights just south of the border.
The sector has already seen a sharp repricing to the upside, but the cash flows generated by this new extraction mandate are only beginning to materialize. Investors pricing in standard cyclical commodity fluctuations may be underestimating the long-term cash flow stability provided by this federal backing of foreign heavy crude.
When evaluating the macro landscape, access to physical commodities takes precedence over temporary pricing dynamics. The integration of Venezuelan crude into the U.S. refining ecosystem is not a short-term trade; it represents a realignment of energy dependence, shielding domestic producers from overseas bottlenecks.
Pumping Yield: Flexing Balance Sheet SupremacyExecuting a state-sponsored extraction mandate requires an impenetrable balance sheet and vast logistical networks. Chevron Corporation NYSE: CVX and ExxonMobil NYSE: XOM are uniquely positioned to leverage these new global reserves and could be real beneficiaries of this foreign policy pivot.
Chevron Today
$211.96 +0.91 (+0.43%)
As of 03:59 PM Eastern
This is a fair market value price provided by Massive. Learn more.
$146.49▼
$214.713.36%
20.32
$207.48
Chevron Corporation recently reported a 57.4% year-over-year revenue surge, posting $6.06 earnings per share against a $5.55 consensus. This earnings beat demonstrates peak operational leverage right before a transformative international expansion.
Chevron's stock price is up around 39% year-to-date, currently trading near $210, backed by a resilient 3.4% dividend yield and a $419 billion market capitalization. Trading at a price-to-earnings ratio of roughly 20, the valuation remains highly competitive given the impending revenue streams from new Latin American fields.
ExxonMobil Today
$164.25 -0.30 (-0.18%)
As of 03:59 PM Eastern
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$108.35▼
$176.412.51%
21.14
$166.10
ExxonMobil generated an imposing $114.53 billion in quarterly revenue, boasting a trailing return on equity of about 13.14%. The sheer scale of these operations entirely eclipses the minor domestic political friction currently making headlines.
While the administration publicly presses refiners on rising consumer gas prices and excludes key executives from domestic policy meetings, the geopolitical reality dictates that ExxonMobil and Chevron Corporation are among the few operators with the capital expenditure runway to handle a Venezuelan infrastructure overhaul.
Picks and Shovels of the Oil BoomExtracting heavy crude from neglected Latin American fields requires substantial upfront capital and elite technical retrofitting. This necessity brings oilfield service providers sharply into focus, making Halliburton Company NYSE: HAL a critical name in this geopolitical equation.
Halliburton Today
$37.67 +0.88 (+2.38%)
As of 03:59 PM Eastern
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$21.40▼
$43.591.80%
19.73
$43.10
When supermajors secure foreign extraction rights, they often outsource the highly specialized infrastructure recovery to proven service titans. Halliburton Company operates with a healthy 18.71% return on equity and a stable net margin of about 7.16%. The stock has risen over 30% this year, trading near $37, yet Wall Street consensus maintains a price target around $43.10, suggesting that healthy upside potential remains.
Service providers capture the highest-margin contracts during the initial phases of infrastructure revitalization. Halliburton Company is positioned to absorb future capital expenditure deployed by Chevron Corporation and ExxonMobil. As the physical fields in Venezuela are brought back online, proprietary drilling technology, cementing services, and reservoir consulting will become non-negotiable line items for the supermajors.
This could create a highly insulated revenue stream for Halliburton Company, safely detached from the day-to-day volatility of oil prices. Service contracts are locked in regardless of short-term crude fluctuations, offering a defensive posture within a high-beta sector.
Pipeline to Profits: Capitalizing on the Geopolitical ShiftThe synchronized momentum across integrated oil and energy services is not just a typical commodity-cycle peak. It represents a repricing of geopolitical energy security. The rapid year-to-date gains across Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil, and Halliburton Company align with the new Venezuelan extraction catalyst.
Those looking to capitalize on this divergence play might consider adding these equities to a watchlist, waiting for minor market pullbacks before taking a position. The cash flow generated from these newly acquired, government-backed extraction rights has yet to fully hit upcoming quarterly earnings, leaving an extended runway for long-term growth as the physical economy adapts.
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Oil major Chevron (CVX +0.46%) plans to invest more than $7 billion in Venezuela through 2031 to double its oil production in the country to nearly 600,000 barrels per day.
This is a massive development as it aligns straight with President Donald Trump's big push in the region. Chevron is the only oil major with an active presence in Venezuela and has been operating in the country since 1923.
Here's what that means for Chevron investors.
Image source: Getty Images.
Chevron's big Venezuela leapDespite sitting on the planet's richest proven crude deposits, Venezuela produced a mere 1.01 million barrels of oil per day in 2025. That's almost one-third of the oil it pumped a couple of decades ago. The industry collapsed because of chronic political mismanagement, U.S. sanctions, and underinvestment.
President Donald Trump wants to revive Venezuela's oil industry to replenish America's dwindling oil reserves amid the ongoing turmoil in the Middle East and to build a crude-oil heavyweight in the Western Hemisphere.
On Aug. 31, the Trump administration announced a landmark oil agreement with Venezuela. The country granted privately held North American Blue Energy Partners (NABEP) 100-year rights to develop 17 oil fields with an estimated 65 billion barrels of reserves. The Pentagon gets a 35% stake in NABEP, and the State Department rights to buy 20% of the oil output at cost.
Two days later, Chevron announced its expansion plans in Venezuela, focusing on the crude-rich Orinoco Belt, which holds most of Venezuela's extra-heavy crude oil reserves. The oil giant has been granted additional development acreage (Carabobo 1 and Carabobo-2-South-A).
While Chevron plans to double production, it expects to do it at production costs averaging only $20 per barrel.
What this means for Chevron investors and its stockWhile doubling Venezuelan output provides a substantial volume boost, the bigger takeaway is cost efficiency. Extraction costs of $20 per barrel should allow Chevron to lock in healthy margins even in low-price environments.
This low-cost expansion strengthens a production portfolio already anchored by high-margin growth in the Permian Basin, offshore Guyana, and the Bakken, especially after last year's $53 billion acquisition of Hess.
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With Hess, Chevron expects to grow earnings per share and adjusted free cash flows at compound annual growth rates above 10% each through 2030. It also expects to buy back 3% to 6% outstanding shares annually while raising dividends every year.
Crucially, the $7 billion Venezuelan commitment breaks down to roughly $1.4 billion annually over five years, which is less than 10% of Chevron's $18 billion to $21 billion annual capital expenditure budget.
The road ahead will not be easy, though.
The ramp-up won't happen overnight, as Venezuela's energy infrastructure will require extensive repairs and modernization. Meanwhile, operations in Venezuela remain constantly exposed to political changes, and potential shifts in diplomatic relations and regulatory frameworks.
Still, the move reinforces Chevron's dominance in South American oil. If things pan out as planned, Chevron can unlock a powerful catalyst for long-term cash flow by securing low-cost production without overextending capital expenditure. That should be a win-win for the company and its shareholders.
NEW YORK — Oil giant Chevron confirmed that it will expand operations in Venezuela after President Donald Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.
Chevron, the only US oil company with a major presence in Venezuela, said Wednesday that it has been assigned additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, where it has active operations.
The company plans to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, with the goal of more than doubling its current production to about 600,000 barrels a day.
Chevron Venezuela President Mariano Vela signs an agreement between US oil major Chevron and government officials to expand the company’s operations at Miraflores Palace in Caracas, Venezuela, on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. REUTERS
An inactive oil pumpjack stands in Cabimas, Venezuela, on Wednesday, Sept. 2, 2026. “Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource potential,” CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement.
Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven reserves, totaling more than 303 billion barrels of crude oil, according to OPEC’s 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin.
Saudi Arabia is a distant second with 267 billion barrels.
Yet because Venezuela’s energy infrastructure is severely degraded and the nation is operating under international sanctions, its daily production is just over one million barrels, compared with the 10 million to 11 million barrels that Saudi Arabia produces each day.
The US produces almost 14 million barrels per day.
Chevron, the second-largest US oil company, has had a presence in Venezuela since 1923.
The White House confirmed Monday that it is partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners as part of Trump’s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry.
A woman walks near an oil storage tank of Venezuela’s state-run oil company, PDVSA, on Tuesday, September 1, 2026, in Cabimas, Venezuela. AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos “What we’re doing is increasing the confidence for private businesses to come do deals in Venezuela, directly with the government of Venezuela,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said during an interview Wednesday on CNBC.
Yet the agreement has been met with skepticism from energy experts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, which is in disarray after years of neglect.
There are also questions about whether Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodríguez, has the authority to give Chevron 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels — and whether future Venezuelan or American administrations would overturn the agreement.
Venezuela’s constitution states that arrangements like the one that the United States announced this week must be approved by the National Assembly, which has not happened, wrote Ian Vásquez, vice president for international studies at the Cato Institute.
“The deal lacks legitimacy since it was agreed to with a dictatorship that has clung to power for decades through violence and by committing what was probably the largest electoral fraud in Latin American history in 2024,” Vásquez wrote.
“The agreement was also reached under overwhelming pressure, military and otherwise, from the United States. As such, any future Venezuelan democracy will question the deal, thus undermining confidence in the current arrangement.”
Trump has eyed Venezuela’s oil since the capture of Nicolás Maduro and has pressed to get US businesses back into the country.
A truck refuels at a Chevron commercial fueling station in Commerce, California, on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026. AFP via Getty Images “We have Exxon going in, we have Chevron going in. We have our big oil companies going in,” he said in January.
He suggested again on Monday that other US oil majors were preparing for a return, though other than Chevron, there is no evidence of that.
Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods said in January that Venezuela was “ uninvestable.” An Exxon spokesman said this week that “nothing has changed.”
The history of US oil majors in Venezuela explains the hesitation.
Venezuela nationalized its oil industry in 1976 and created the state-owned company Petróleos de Venezuela S.A.
The Chevron logo is seen alongside diesel prices above $7 a gallon at a truck stop on Wednesday, Aug. 26, 2026, in Commerce, California. AFP via Getty Images A second nationalization occurred in 2007, when President Hugo Chávez pushed foreign oil companies into state-controlled joint ventures and seized the assets of companies that refused.
Chevron agreed to a joint venture. Others, including Exxon and ConocoPhillips, refused, and Venezuela took their assets.
Trump has said that the agreement with Venezuela would “substantially lower” gasoline prices in the US.
However, analysts have repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure will require years of restoration work and tens of billions of dollars to resuscitate.
“It could take 2 to 4 years to get new greenfield facilities online in the Orinoco region,” Amy Jaffe, director of the Global Energy, Climate, and Sustainability Lab at New York University, said in an email.
“Other places where there is no pipeline and other kinds of support infrastructure could take longer.”
Meanwhile, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped overnight to $4.12, according to the motor club AAA. That is 93 cents more than it cost at this point last year.
Chevron's CEO just flew to Caracas and committed billions to a deal that could reshape global oil markets, then turned around and delivered news that frustrated drivers everywhere will not want to hear.
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Chevron CEO Mike Wirth flew to Caracas and committed real capital, then told American drivers cheaper gas is not coming from this deal. That split screen is the story.
In a CNBC interview Tuesday, Wirth said Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction) will spend $7 billion across three joint ventures over five years to triple Venezuelan production from roughly 300,000 barrels per day to over 600,000 barrels per day by 2031, at a cost per barrel of less than $20. Wirth framed the economics as accretive to free cash flow, made viable by renegotiated fiscal terms, royalties, legal framework, and dispute resolution provisions.
What Wirth Told Drivers Asked whether Venezuelan crude would bring down U.S. gasoline prices, Wirth called it “a long term add to supply globally” and said a new refinery would take “5 to 7 years” to build. He pointed to the Middle East and Russia-Ukraine as drivers of tight product markets, noting the only faster fix is routing more product to existing refineries.
The national average price of regular gas sat at $4.071 per gallon on August 31, 2026, above the $4.00 “painful for budgets” threshold. That is up from $2.779 on January 12, with a 2026 peak of $4.50 on May 11. On the Q2 call, Wirth said diesel is the tightest spot, warning of “upward pressure on product pricing here into the third quarter and perhaps beyond that.”
Pump Versus Portfolio The same tightness squeezing drivers is a tailwind for the stock. CVX traded at $211.66 Wednesday morning, up 42.32% year to date and 5.58% in the past week. Q2 delivered adjusted EPS of $6.06, revenue of $67.20 billion, and downstream earnings of $4.87 billion versus $737 million a year ago. Debt fell by more than $8 billion in the quarter.
Long Game Wirth Is Playing On the Q2 call, Wirth previewed the Venezuela pivot: “We are going to work it to create value, not for a year or two, not growth for a year or two, but value long, long, long into the future.” He noted debt recovery from Caracas would be “fully recovered” by early 2027.
U.S. production hit a record 2.1 million barrels per day last quarter, more than 50% of global output, and Kazakhstan and the Black Sea pipeline are running at full capacity. Shareholders got the answer. Drivers got a timeline measured in years.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX, XETRA:CHV). said on Wednesday it has reached new agreements with Venezuela that grant the company additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt and updated terms for its joint ventures in the country, backing plans to more than double production over the next five years.
The agreements provide enhanced fiscal, commercial and legal terms for Chevron's Venezuelan joint ventures and assign the company additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, where it already holds an established position.
The updated terms support joint venture plans to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years and increase production to approximately 600,000 barrels a day, more than double 2026 output. Chevron said total costs in the region are below $20 per barrel.
"Chevron's history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country's deep resource potential and its ability to compete for investment within our portfolio for decades," said Mike Wirth, Chevron’s CEO.
"With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value.”
Under the agreements, the Petroindependencia joint venture, in which Chevron holds a 49% interest, has been assigned rights to develop the adjacent Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas in the Orinoco Belt, expanding the venture's operational footprint as it increases extra-heavy oil production.
The additional sites follow an April agreement in which Chevron raised its working interest in Petroindependencia to 49% and gained rights to develop the Ayacucho 8 area adjacent to the Petropiar joint venture. Chevron's three Venezuelan joint ventures have grown production by 15% year-to-date.
Chevron's presence in Venezuela dates back to 1923. Its Petroindependencia and Petropiar joint ventures operate extra-heavy oil projects in the Orinoco Belt, while Petroboscan operates in Zulia State in western Venezuela.
Chevron CVX , the integrated oil-and-gas heavyweight, jumped approximately 0.4% to $211.845 Wednesday after committing more than $7 billion to Venezuela. The target is huge: roughly 600,000 barrels per day within five years, double the company's current production in the country.
Chevron is adding two Orinoco Belt areas to its Petroindependencia venture while using pipelines, roads and facilities already on the ground. That existing infrastructure matters. The company expects production costs below $20 per barrel and says its agreements offer stronger fiscal, commercial and legal protections. Its second-quarter results generated $12.1 billion in earnings and $15.4 billion in adjusted free cash flow.
Chevron can afford this bet. The maximum investment equals roughly 45% of one quarter's adjusted free cash flow, leaving the balance sheet with plenty of breathing room. But the stock offers little margin for disappointment: the picture places Chevron 31.74% above its $160.80 GF Value™ estimate. Cheap barrels are only half the equation. Investors now need proof that Venezuela's promised protections can outlast the political risk.
Jim Cramer just called Chevron a winner at a 52-week high, but independent analysts and a prominent Venezuela skeptic see a critical gap between Chevron's five-year production promise and what the barrels actually require to reach market.
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Jim Cramer likes what he sees in Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction). The stock closed at $211.05 on September 1, a fresh 52-week high, and is up 42.32% year to date. On Tuesday morning, CEO Mike Wirth walked onto CNBC’s Squawk Box and gave shareholders a fresh reason to cheer: a headline Venezuela expansion. Cramer’s endorsement of the stock, however, sits next to a very specific question, one the same broadcast raised within minutes. Can Venezuela actually double its output on Chevron’s schedule?
What Chevron Just Told the Market Chevron said its Venezuelan joint venture will invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, with plans to roughly double production to about 600,000 barrels a day. The joint venture will pick up existing acreage in the Cocoa Belt, where Chevron already has an operating footprint through Petroindependencia and Petropiar. Wirth framed the plan as additive rather than competitive with U.S. barrels, according to comments he made on CNBC.
On the July earnings call, Wirth had already told analysts Chevron is “actively working with the government to look at other opportunities” and that any additional spend has to “compete in our portfolio for capital.” Management also said existing Venezuelan JV output has grown from 40,000 to 250,000 barrels in recent years, and that Chevron expects its Venezuelan debt to be fully recovered by early 2027.
Why Analysts Are Flagging the Timeline Kpler’s Amena Bakr has been public about her skepticism. In earlier commentary, she wrote that the barrels capable of moving U.S. pump prices are “5 to 15 years out.” Michelle Caruso-Cabrera of MCC Global has also flagged contract-sanctity risk on Venezuelan deals under the current political framework. Chevron’s five-year clock diverges from the independent view of a decade-plus ramp, and the gap matters for anyone paying a peak price today.
Financial Firepower Behind the Bet The Q2 earnings report gives Chevron room to spend without stretching the balance sheet. Chevron reported adjusted EPS of $6.06 on revenue of $67.2 billion, up 51.43% year over year, per its 8-K filing. Free cash flow was $18.10 billion, and Chevron reduced debt by $8.41 billion in the quarter alone. Worldwide production hit 4,070 MBOED, up 20% year over year, with a record 2,077 MBOED from U.S. upstream and refineries running at 97% utilization.
Wirth summarized the quarter this way: “Our strong second quarter performance is a result of disciplined investment and strong execution that drove record U.S. upstream production, record crude throughput in our U.S. refineries, and exceptional reliability across key assets.” Chevron returned capital aggressively too, with $3.117 billion in Q2 buybacks and a $1.78 quarterly dividend.
Valuation Reality Check CVX now trades at $211.73, with a trailing P/E near 34. Against a 2026 consensus EPS of $15.87, the forward multiple is roughly 13x. The 2027 EPS consensus, however, slips to $13.20, reflecting analyst caution about oil prices normalizing from spring highs. WTI ran to $105.67 on April 3 and has since settled at $87.35 as of August 21, still well above the $57.54 print on January 2 that anchored the year.
What CVX Shareholders Are Actually Paying For Cramer is right that Chevron is flying. The Q2 execution, the balance-sheet strength, the Microsoft AI power deal, and the Iraq and Guyana pipelines all justify the run. The Venezuela leg is the one to watch. If Chevron hits 600,000 barrels a day within five years, shareholders paying a 52-week high are getting a compounding growth option on top of the base business. If Bakr’s decade timeline is closer to the truth, the market is already paying for barrels that arrive well after this cycle. The next catalysts to monitor are Q3 earnings on September 30, TCO affiliate distributions at higher Brent, and any confirmation of Venezuelan JV terms that would allow Chevron to book incremental reserves.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Chevron announced plans Wednesday to more than double its oil production in Venezuela over the next five years through a $7 billion investment that expands its position in the South American nation. CNBC's Brian Sullivan and Mike Wirth, Chevron CEO, joins 'Squawk on the Street' to discuss.
Oil giant Chevron confirmed that it will expand its operations in Venezuela, just days after President Donald Trump announced an ambitious deal to develop the nation’s oil reserves and give the Pentagon a stake in the profits.
Chevron, the only U.S. oil company that has a major presence in the country, said Wednesday that it has been assigned additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, where the company has an established position. Joint venture plans include investing more than $7 billion over the next five years, more than doubling production to approximately 600,000 barrels a day compared with 2026.
“Chevron’s history in Venezuela spans more than a century, and our expanded position reflects our confidence in the country’s deep resource potential and its ability to compete for investment within our portfolio for decades,” CEO Mike Wirth said in a prepared statement. “With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value.”
Venezuela holds the world’s largest proven reserves, totaling more than 303 billion barrels of crude oil, according to OPEC’s 2025 Annual Statistical Bulletin. Saudi Arabia is a distant second with 267 billion barrels.
The announcement comes a day after a U.S. official, who briefed reporters on the expected announcement, said that Chevron officials and Energy Secretary Chris Wright were expected to visit Venezuela on Wednesday when the new investment would be formally unveiled. The official spoke on condition of anonymity under ground rules set by the White House for the call.
Chevron is the second-largest U.S. oil company and the only one with a major presence in Venezuela. It has had a presence in the country since 1923. Its joint ventures Petroindependencia and Petropiar, S.A. operate extra-heavy oil projects in the Orinoco Oil Belt, while Petroboscan, S.A. is located in the Zulia State in western Venezuela.
The White House confirmed on Monday that it is partnering with North American Blue Energy Partners as part of Trump ‘s push to tap into Venezuela’s oil industry.
The sweeping agreement has been met with skepticism from analysts who say it will take years to revive Venezuela’s oil industry, which is in disarray after years of neglect.
Energy experts also have questioned whether Venezuela’s acting President Delcy Rodríguez has the legal authority to give the company 100-year rights over 17 oil fields with reserves of 65 billion barrels — and whether future Venezuelan or American administrations would overturn the agreement.
Trump has had his eyes on Venezuela’s oil since the capture of Nicolás Maduro, and his aides call it a path away from reliance on oil from the Middle East. Trump has been pressing to get U.S. businesses to restore a presence in the country, and suggested Monday that other oil companies were readying for business in Venezuela. “We have Exxon going in, we have Chevron going in. We have our big oil companies going in,” he said. Trump in January said he was inclined to leave Exxon out of Venezuela after CEO Darren Woods called the country “uninvestable.”
A spokesman for Exxon said Tuesday, however, that “nothing has changed” on the company’s position regarding Venezuela.
Asked about Chevron’s announcement during an interview on Wednesday, Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said, “No American firm knows how to operate in Venezuela better than Chevron.”
Bessent told Fox News Channel’s “Fox & Friends” that Trump is “creating assets for the American people” with the deal and that the arrangement “is going to push down oil prices, push up production” to benefit U.S. consumers and the Venezuelan economy.
Trump has said that the agreement with Venezuela would “substantially lower” gasoline prices in the U.S. However, experts have repeatedly warned that Venezuela’s dilapidated oil infrastructure will require years of restoration work and tens of billions of dollars to resuscitate.
Meanwhile, the national average price for a gallon of regular gasoline jumped overnight to $4.12, according to the motor club AAA. That’s 93 cents more than it cost at this point last year.
Associated Press writers Aamer Madhani and Collin Binkley contributed to this report.
—Michelle Chapman, AP Business Writer
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Chevron Corp. Chief Executive Officer Mike Wirth talks about the deal to invest $7 billion in Venezuela through a series of joint venture partnerships. It's part of the Trump administration's push to revive the country's oil industry.
SummaryChevron Corporation expands its Venezuelan JV, targeting over a $7B investment to potentially double oil production to 600,000 bpd at sub-$20/barrel costs.Q2 results were robust: $6.06 non-GAAP EPS (vs. $5.57 consensus), $70B revenue (+56% YoY), record U.S. upstream output, and $15.4B adjusted free cash flow.I reiterate a buy rating on CVX, raising my price target with a tighter margin of safety; technicals are bullish and valuation remains attractive.CVX targets 2–3% production CAGR, >10% adjusted FCF CAGR, and >3% ROCE improvement by 2030, with disciplined capital allocation and high dividend yield. JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
There's news in the Energy patch. Chevron Corporation (CVX) announced a deal to expand its Venezuelan joint venture, committing over $7 billion over the next five years to potentially more than double oil production
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HOUSTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX) today announced agreements with Venezuela that establish updated terms for its joint ventures, supporting future investment, project development and production growth in the country. The agreements set out provisions for Chevron's joint ventures in Venezuela, including enhanced fiscal, commercial and legal terms intended to support durable and competitive long-term investments. As part of the agreements, Chevron has been assigned additio.
Chevron announced plans Wednesday to more than double its oil production in Venezuela over the next five years through a $7 billion investment that expands its position in the South American nation.
The oil major has been assigned two additional oilfields in the Orinoco Belt, the region that contains most of Venezuela's vast extra heavy crude reserves. Chevron plans to increase its production in the country to 600,000 barrels per day compared with around 280,000 bpd currently.
Chevron is the only U.S. oil major active in Venezuela through joint ventures with state-owned oil company PDVSA.
"With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value," Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said in a statement.
Chevron's announcement comes as the U.S. government pushes to increase oil production in Venezuela through private investment. The country's oil infrastructure is in a state of disrepair after years of mismanagement by its socalist government.
President Donald Trump announced Friday that the U.S. secured majority control over 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's crude oil reserves, about 20% of the 303 billion barrels the country is thought to possess. U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright is visiting Venezuela Wednesday.
Washington has partnered with the private oil company North American Blue Energy Partners to develop those reserves. Venezuela's interim government has given NABEP concessions to 17 oilfields for 100 years. NABEP, in turn, has granted the U.S. Defense Department a 35% equity stake.
The U.S. captured former President Nicolás Maduro in a military raid in January and seized control of Venezuela's oil exports. Washington has partnered with interim President Delcy Rodríguez, who served as vice president under Maduro.
Chevron shares were up less than 1% in premarket trading after the announcement.
Chevron is taking steps to more than double its production in Venezuela, planning to invest more than $7 billion in the country over the next five years.
Venezuela's interim president, Delcy Rodriguez, greets U.S. Assistant Secretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit during a signing of an agreement ceremony between Chevron Venezuela and the national government at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas on April 13, 2026. Chevron announced Wednesday a plan to further expand operations in the country. Photo: Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse/Getty ImagesChevron said Wednesday it will expand its operations in Venezuela, following the Trump administration’s move for a Pentagon-backed plan to develop the country’s oil reserves.
Chevron CVX said it has been assigned additional acreage in the Orinoco Belt, where it already has an established position. Chevron said the enhancements underpin its joint-venture plan to invest over $7 billion over the next five years, which will more than double production to 600,000 barrels a day.
About the Author
Steven Goldstein is based in London and responsible for MarketWatch's coverage of financial markets in Europe, with a particular focus on global macro and commodities. Previously, he was Washington bureau chief, directing MarketWatch's economic, political and regulatory coverage. Follow Steve on Twitter: @MKTWgoldstein.
Chevron plans to more than double its oil production in Venezuela, investing $7 billion over the next five years. The company is making largest financial commitment so far in a US government-led push to revive the Latin American country's industry.
Oil producers Chevron (CVX.N) and ENI (ENI.MI) and investors KEO Capital (KEOC.ST) and Primavera are among the companies set to sign energy agreements in Venezuela as soon as Wednesday, two sources close to the preparations said.
Most pacts imply project expansions that have been in negotiation with Venezuela's oil ministry and state oil company PDVSA as part of the migration of dozens of energy contracts to new terms under a sweeping oil reform approved in January.
U.S. oil major Chevron plans to invest more than $7 billion to more than double crude production in the OPEC country to about 600,000 barrels per day over the next five years, part of its strategy of expanding joint ventures with PDVSA, it said on Wednesday in a release.
Last week, KEO Capital said in a release that one of its U.S. subsidiaries had reached an agreement for the Petrourdaneta oil joint venture with PDVSA, following the approval of its board, turning the company into the project's operator and including a $350-million credit facility.
ENI, on its side, which shares an offshore gas project with Repsol (REP.MC) and a shallow water oil project with PDVSA, is seeking to expand oil operations in Venezuela through a new area in the Orinoco Belt, according to separate sources.
The company told Reuters last week it was working with its Venezuelan counterparties to "support the revitalization of the country's energy sector." It declined to provide details.
Primavera, a firm co-founded by billionaire Fred Ehrsam to invest in Venezuela, could not be reached immediately for comment.
Venezuela's oil minister, Paula Henao, and U.S. Secretary of Energy, Chris Wright, who arrived in Caracas late on Tuesday, are expected to oversee the signing of the contracts, officials have said.
Chevron is expanding its footprint in Venezuela under new agreements that call for more than $7 billion in investment over the next five years and aim to more than double production from its joint ventures in the country.
The oil giant said Wednesday that the agreements establish updated fiscal, commercial and legal terms for its Venezuelan joint ventures, creating conditions for additional investment, development and production growth.
Chevron expects the joint ventures to increase production to approximately 600,000 barrels per day, while keeping total costs below $20 per barrel. Production across Chevron’s three Venezuelan joint ventures has already increased 15% so far this year, the company said.
MEET THE MAN BEHIND TRUMP'S JOINT VENEZUELA OIL VENTURE
A sign displays the price of regular gasoline fuel at a Chevron gas station in Austin, Texas, on Tuesday, May 5, 2026. (Kaylee Greenlee/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
As part of the latest agreements, Chevron’s Petroindependencia joint venture was assigned rights to develop the adjacent Carabobo-1 and Carabobo-2-South-A areas in Venezuela’s Orinoco Oil Belt.
The expansion builds on an April agreement that increased Chevron’s working interest in Petroindependencia to 49%. That deal also gave the Petropiar joint venture, in which Chevron holds a 30% interest, rights to develop the adjacent Ayacucho 8 area.
Oil pumps operate near Lake Maracaibo in Maracaibo, Zulia state, Venezuela, on July 12, 2024. Decades of mismanagement, underinvestment and sanctions have contributed to the decline of Venezuela’s once-dominant oil industry. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
"With improved terms and additional acreage, we are strengthening a portfolio that we believe can deliver attractive low-cost oil growth, support energy supply and create differentiated long-term value," Chevron Chairman and CEO Mike Wirth said in a statement.
The investment push comes amid a major shift in the U.S.-Venezuela relationship following the January U.S. military operation that captured former Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in Caracas. Maduro was brought to the U.S. to face federal drug-trafficking charges.
Cerro Negro heavy oil upgrader facility in the Orinoco Oil Belt near Cerro Negro, Venezuela. (Ed Lallo/Getty Images / Getty Images)
Separately, the Trump administration announced an oil agreement last month involving approximately 65 billion barrels of proven Venezuelan reserves. Under the arrangement, Venezuelan interim authorities granted North American Blue Energy Partners 100-year concessions covering 17 oil fields, while the U.S. government secured majority ownership and governance rights in the venture.
Chairman of the Board and CEO of Chevron Corporation, Mike Wirth, speaks during the 29th annual Milken Institute Global Conference at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills, California on May 4, 2026. (Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images / Getty Images)
Against that backdrop, Chevron credited the Trump administration, including the U.S. Department of Energy, with helping facilitate conditions for further investment and growth in Venezuela.
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"Continued engagement between government and industry is essential to advancing projects that support energy security, economic growth and continued investment," Wirth said.
Chevron (CVX.N) said on Wednesday it had agreed with Venezuela on updated terms for its joint ventures in the country and plans to invest more than $7 billion over the next five years, targeting production of about 600,000 bpd.
The expansion is the culmination of several months of negotiation conducted separately from Washington's recent announcement of an unprecedented deal to take majority control of about 65 billion barrels of Venezuela's oil reserves.
The agreements provide enhanced fiscal, commercial and legal terms and include additional acreage in Venezuela's Orinoco Belt, Chevron said.
Following the U.S. capture and removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro from office in January, U.S. President Donald Trump has pushed a $100 billion reconstruction plan for Venezuela's energy sector, urging U.S. oil companies to invest in the country.
While Chevron's Venezuela operations have continued uninterrupted for at least 100 years, fellow oil producers ExxonMobil (XOM.N) and ConocoPhillips(COP.N) have remained on the sidelines.
Both companies exited the country in 2007 when their assets were nationalized under the previous government of President Hugo Chavez.
Chevron said the investment would support production growth at its three Venezuelan joint ventures, which have increased output by 15% so far this year. Total costs are expected to remain below $20 per barrel, the company said.
Chevron already produces about 280,000 barrels of oil a day in Venezuela through joint ventures. The company has said it can expand by another 50% over the next two years,
Washington just handed 100-year control of the world's largest proven oil reserves to a private company most investors have never heard of, and the structure of the deal locks retail traders out completely.
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The energy market is being reshaped by more than oil prices. Governments are increasingly treating reliable energy supplies as strategic assets, particularly after years of geopolitical disruptions and underinvestment.
Venezuela sits at the center of that shift with the world’s largest proven crude reserves, yet much of its oil infrastructure remains badly underdeveloped. Now the Trump administration says it has found a way to put those reserves back to work — without buying them outright.
The surprising part isn’t just the 65 billion barrels involved. It’s the company Washington chose to operate them.
Meet Venezuela’s New Oil Giant The White House says Venezuela has granted privately-held North American Blue Energy Partners, or NABEP, 100-year concessions covering 17 oil fields containing approximately 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
That instantly gives NABEP an extraordinary resource base. The White House describes NABEP as Venezuela’s second-largest private oil operator, following Chevron (NYSE:CVX | CVX Price Prediction).
And yet most investors had barely heard of it. That’s because NABEP isn’t publicly traded. There is no stock for investors to buy, no quarterly earnings report to dissect, and no Wall Street analyst coverage to drive the stock price.
Reuters reported that NABEP was formerly owned by U.S. businessman Harry Sargeant and is now led by Venezuelan businessman Alejandro Betancourt. The newly announced agreement expands its footprint to 17 projects, including fields previously operated by Russian and Chinese companies.
That existing operating experience may explain why Trump chose NABEP rather than handing the keys to one of the world’s oil majors.
Washington just locked down a 100-year grip on the world's largest oil reserves. Meet the private giant retail investors are locked out of. Why NABEP Instead of Big Oil? The U.S. government receives a 35% equity stake in NABEP’s corporate parent at no cost to taxpayers, along with the right to purchase 20% of all current and future production at production cost. It also gets first refusal on the remaining 80%.
The government gets veto power over NABEP board appointments, while a majority of directors must be U.S. citizens. NABEP, meanwhile, plans to invest up to $100 billion in Venezuelan oil infrastructure. That structure is important because it turns NABEP into something closer to a strategic U.S.-aligned energy platform than a conventional oil producer.
A major oil company could bring enormous technical expertise and capital. But NABEP already has a Venezuelan operating footprint and local relationships, while the U.S. government can effectively supply political backing, preferential market access, and governance oversight.
In short, Washington appears to have decided that the fastest route to controlling the resource wasn’t buying an oil major. It was backing an operator already inside the country.
Chevron is apparently carving out its own Venezuelan agreement that could allow it to expand production quickly. Reuters says Chevron and several other international energy companies are finalizing agreements under Venezuela’s revised hydrocarbons framework.
The $100 Billion Question Granted, 65 billion barrels of proven reserves aren’t the same thing as 65 billion barrels of immediately available cash flow. Venezuela’s oil industry has suffered years of underinvestment, deteriorating infrastructure, sanctions, and operational problems. NABEP therefore has to spend enormous amounts of money before those reserves become productive assets.
The White House estimates NABEP will invest as much as $100 billion, while Venezuela expects roughly $200 billion in royalties and taxes during the first 25 years as production expands.
Venezuelan officials are targeting production of more than 1.5 million barrels per day from the 17 fields. S&P Global reports Venezuela produced about 1.21 million barrels per day in July, meaning the target would represent an increase of roughly 24% over the country’s current production.
That is a massive project. It is also why the market shouldn’t assume the benefits arrive overnight.
Key Takeaway In short, Wall Street couldn’t foresee the creation of a potentially enormous private energy company that now sits at the center of a U.S.-backed strategy involving 65 billion barrels of proven reserves.
Trump’s choice of NABEP makes more sense when viewed through that lens. The company already had Venezuelan operating experience, local connections, and an established position in the country’s oil industry. Washington could then layer on capital, governance rights, guaranteed access to production, and political support.
The biggest risk is execution. The 100-year concession sounds extraordinary, but rebuilding Venezuela’s oil industry could take years and $100 billion of investment. Political and legal uncertainty also cannot be ignored. Ultimately, NABEP has gone from an obscure private operator to one of the most strategically important oil companies in the world almost overnight. Unfortunately for investors, there is no stock to buy.
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