From Bloomberg via RigZone, November 12:
Chevron Corp. chose West Texas as the site of its first project to provide natural gas-fired power to a data center, the beginning of a new line of business for the oil giant to capitalize on the boom in artificial intelligence.
The company is in exclusive talks with the data center’s end user, which it didn’t name, and anticipates making a final investment decision early next year, according to a statement and presentation released ahead of Chevron’s investor day on Wednesday. The facility is expected be operational in 2027, and will have capacity to generate as much as 5,000 megawatts in the future.
Big Oil is looking to cash in on the enormous demand for energy that will be needed to power data centers, which are being located further away from major population centers and closer to sources of fuel. Chevron is one of the biggest producers in the Permian Basin of West Texas, which spews out so much natural gas that it often overwhelms pipelines and has to be burned off.
“We’ve got the gas,” Chief Financial Officer Eimear Bonner said in an interview prior to Chevron’s investor presentation in New York on Wednesday. “We are uniquely positioned to have a very competitive project.”
The power project is expected to ramp up by its third year to have the capacity to produce about 2,500 megawatts, which is more than the equivalent of two nuclear reactors. It will likely be built separately from the grid to avoid competing with electricity supply for the wider population. Chevron sees an opportunity to secure demand for its 3 billion cubic feet per day of natural gas output....
....MUCH MORE
Previously:
January 28 - Chevron Partners With GE Vernova and Investment Firm Engine No 1 To Power Data Centers (CVX; GEV)
Engine No. 1 is interesting in this context. They are something of an activist investor though small—$500 million AUM, an amount Chevron probably has in the couch cushions—$4.7 billion cash and equiv. a/o the last quarterly. GE Vernova just reported $10 billion in quarterly revenue and a $8.2 billion cash balance, comforting in light of yesterday's $90.49 (21.52%) whack on the stock....
