California Says Good-bye to the Petroleum Industry
[guest post by JVW]
In other news, bored with chasing away aerospace jobs, California decides to drive out the oil industry too. Even the Dog Trainer can’t help but take notice:
With the announcement Friday that it was moving its headquarters from California to Texas, Chevron Corp. became perhaps one of the last dinosaurs to slip into the tar pit, a symbol of California’s monumental transition from a manufacturing and production state to the brave new world of services.
In the popular imagination, California has long been seen as Hollywood, sunshine and beaches that attracted millions of new residents and built its sprawling cities. But in reality the great magnet of growth for decades was the production of things: think the aerospace industry, petroleum and agriculture.
The transition away from manufacturing has been going on for decades, exemplified by Silicon Valley, which churns out the ideas for high-tech devices but leaves the actual production to others, overseas, and the sprawling ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which offload the vast flow of manufactured goods from abroad.
Yes, because “services,” especially in non-tangible things like apps and social media, can’t just be made anywhere, right? Amazingly enough the reporter, 30-year LAT veteran Don Lee, gets this and he adds a very lightly-cloaked warning that perhaps this is not the economic nirvana that Gavin Newsom and the Tech Bros believe it is:
The transition away from manufacturing has been going on for decades, exemplified by Silicon Valley, which churns out the ideas for high-tech devices but leaves the actual production to others, overseas, and the sprawling ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which offload the vast flow of manufactured goods from abroad.
And Mr. Lee is willing to interview an accademic who actually believes it might not be such a great thing for the state which once produced one-fifth of the world’s oil to suddenly shut down the wells:
The downshift reflects just how far the state has staked its fortunes away from fossil fuels to renewable forms of energy and, in particular, away from gas-powered cars to become the center of the electric vehicle industry
“Oil and gas has shaped California into what it became, but it has been in a tremendous decline,” said Andreas Michael, an assistant professor of petroleum engineering at the University of North Dakota. Chevron’s move out of the state, he said, “is a milestone in that decline, and it’s very sad to see.”
But lest the reader get the impression that the state might be really remiss in chasing away such a key industry, the Dog Trainer comes back and finds another academic — one in the humanities, naturally — to declare that this might all be Chevron’s fault:
Sarah Elkind, a San Diego State University history professor who has chronicled the profound impact of oil production on people’s health and industry overall in Los Angeles, wondered out loud whether Chevron was leaving California to get away from regulatory scrutiny.
“It’s unfortunate corporations will relocate their workforces in places that have fewer environmental regulations rather than working in ways that lead to healthy and vibrant communities,” she said.
Sure Sarah, because what corporation wouldn’t want to pay the danegeld in order to operate in a state run by absolute nutcases, so many of whom have contempt for capitalism? And, again to his credit, Mr. Lee is willing to acknowledge this:
Recently Elon Musk said he is moving his companies SpaceX and X from California to Texas, and over the last decade there have been scores of other California companies in tech and other industries that have fled the state, with many attributing it to the state’s high operating costs and other policies that they see as not supportive of business.
Of course Greasy Governor Gavin’s office disagrees and outright dismisses Chevron’s relocating its headquarters (and 2,000 jobs) from San Ramon to Houston:
Gov. Gavin Newsom’s office downplayed the significance of Chevron’s relocation news Friday and highlighted the growth and opportunities in clean energy for California, which it said already has six times more jobs than fossil fuels employment.
“This announcement is the logical culmination of a long process that has repeatedly been foreshadowed by Chevron,” said Alex Stack, a spokesman for the governor’s office. “We’re proud of California’s place as the leading creator of clean energy jobs — a critical part of our diverse, innovative and vibrant economy.”
And, as with Spain in the 1990s, pretty much every one of those “clean energy jobs” is heavily dependent upon subsidies from our dead-broke federal government. Way to think things through, Sacramento Democrats.
Back to someone who knows a thing or two about California oil and reminds us what could be, had the state not been captured by the Green Energy mob:
“And I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet,” said Uduak-Joe Ntuk, an industry expert who until this year oversaw oil fields for the California Department of Conservation’s energy management division. Los Angeles County alone still has thousands of oil wells. “We have billions of barrels of recoverable oil in California, but they’re just in the ground.”
Someday maybe we’ll come to our senses, but there’s going to be a pretty significant reckoning first.
– JVW
Read the user comments on that Dog Trainer article. When it all collapses they will be the first to decry their bad luck.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/5/2024 @ 7:34 amChevron ought to sell its refineries to the state, so that government can run those operations for the people.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/5/2024 @ 7:36 amthe brave new world of services
Once the middle-class has left it will just be the rich and their servants, AKA “service jobs.” They may not be footmen and maids, but they won’t be able to eat at the restaurants where they cook the meals.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/5/2024 @ 7:41 amJust a random sample of the Dog Trainer comment section:
and
and
But there is some pushback:
and
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/5/2024 @ 7:47 amAlso, the “Red Wave” finally arrived today…
SaveFarris (79ab12) — 8/5/2024 @ 10:07 amAs I said on a previous thread, I hope Chevron brings along generators to keep its lights on……..
Rip Murdock (d2a2a8) — 8/5/2024 @ 10:14 amWere I in California, I think I’d try to get an initiative passed capping gas prices at $2/gallon.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/5/2024 @ 10:26 amKevin M (a9545f) — 8/5/2024 @ 7:36 am
will have an incentive not to shut them down, although they may o=cost more to operate while insiders make money from bond offerings and the politicians take credit for creating or saving “good union jobs.”
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 8/5/2024 @ 11:16 amChevron has been moving to Houston for close to 20 years, they already had a larger campus in Houston, and Houston is the “silicon valley” of Oil and Gas. ExxonMobil moved there from Dallas about a decade ago after the merger. That East Bay campus has been moving forever. If you go out to Spring or The Woodlands, it’s tens of thousands of O&G employees.
If you’re Chevron, that’s where the talent is.
ExxonMobil’s Campus is new and just massive, something like 10k people there, and it was just built in 14.
You always see the Toyota TMNA move from Torrance to Plano was a big deal. The vast majority of TMNA actually moved from Northern Kentucky, the original thought was Torrance was going to move here, but then Plano offered $50M and a boatload of incentives, so why not.
How much is Houston paying to get them to move a few hundred folks this year, and maybe some more in a few years as Chevron said they’d be maintaining most of the folks for 5 years. So it’s just reflagging the HQ building, the execs aren’t moving, so this isn’t really a huge deal. It’s bad from a PR perspective the reality is less drastic.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 8/5/2024 @ 12:06 pmSan Ramon weather>>>>>>>>Houston weather
norcal (6152f6) — 8/5/2024 @ 12:13 pmSo it’s just reflagging the HQ building, the execs aren’t moving, so this isn’t really a huge deal.
On the contrary, this is a big deal because even though the execs are going to stay because they have their luxurious homes and the kids are enrolled in tony private schools, Chevron is shipping middle-class jobs out of the state. And the regulations in California are a huge reason, but also the fact that entry-level and even middle-management in places like San Ramon, Torrance, Irvine, Vista, and other places continually complain that California is unaffordable. Two thousand jobs is two thousand jobs, and a lot of them are going to be people who otherwise would have raised a family here.
I harp on this a lot, but Governor Jerry Brown’s future budget projections from back 7 or 8 years ago predicted that the number of school-aged children in the state would continue to drop, as would the number of people in the 18-29 age group. This state is going to get old very quickly, and it won’t be long until Florida looks young and vibrant compared to us. This is the future we have created by prioritizing the whims of wealthy progressives, and it is not going to be good.
JVW (2b47a7) — 8/5/2024 @ 1:16 pmThis is the future we have created by prioritizing the whims of wealthy progressives, and it is not going to be good.
JVW (2b47a7) — 8/5/2024 @ 1:16 pm
Yes, but you have the beach, nice restaurants, and pretty girls. 😛
norcal (5ec32e) — 8/5/2024 @ 1:50 pmYes, but you have the beach, nice restaurants, and pretty girls.
And I’m old too. But today’s 25-year-old JVW who wants to move here can no longer afford to. And that’s because right as I was moving here (in the cursed Clinton years) we started making it virtually impossible for people like me to make it here.
JVW (2b47a7) — 8/5/2024 @ 2:01 pmAnd that’s because right as I was moving here (in the cursed Clinton years) we started making it virtually impossible for people like me to make it here.
JVW (2b47a7) — 8/5/2024 @ 2:01 pm
I also moved to California in the (early) Clinton years. Found asylum just across the border in Nevada 15 years ago. No beach, but no state income tax, either. The mountains here make up for the lack of a beach. Besides, the Lake Tahoe shoreline in the summer is rather nice.
Speaking of taxes, I just received my annual property tax notice. A tad under $1500 (yes, two zeroes, not three) for a 4 bedroom, 2 bathroom house on a quarter acre. I just love lean government.
norcal (5ec32e) — 8/5/2024 @ 2:24 pmHey, I get it, I moved from SFO to Vegas in the days of RenoAir and $29 round trips.
But the specifics are important, they’re saying (according to the article at least) that they’re not moving the 2k jobs, at least not for years.
I still think that when one city puts up a huge bounty to move, or at least announce a move, it’s less a view on the current location, and more on the new place.
NCR moved from Dayton to Atlanta when Atlanta offered a huge incentive, when that incentive expired, they took an offer from the northern suburbs of Atlanta.
Plus, Chevron had a huge liability in their Richmond refinery fire, and being in California meant the victims actually could sue more easily than if they were in a less consumer rights focused states.
California has a lot of pluses; weather, tech talent, education that Houston doesn’t offer. It also has a lot of minuses, CoL is a huge one. Hence, I decamped to Vegas then Cincinnati.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 8/5/2024 @ 2:57 pmDon’t let the door hit you on the way out! In earlier post I pointed out oil companies and gm conspired with politicians to rid southern ca. of their passenger rail service so they could sell polluting buses.
asset (98dec2) — 8/5/2024 @ 3:02 pmHence, I decamped to Vegas then Cincinnati.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 8/5/2024 @ 2:57 pm
I would decamp to Vegas from Reno if Vegas didn’t have such a dicey water situation. I like hot weather, and Vegas has better restaurants.
norcal (5ec32e) — 8/5/2024 @ 3:04 pmWhat I find hilarious is all the folks in Texas that crow about this showing how great Texas is.
Then when the Californians move, they moan and complain about all the Californians.
Colonel Klink (ret) (96f56a) — 8/5/2024 @ 3:21 pm@18 do they crow about over half the babies born in texas are latinx? Also like Arizona democrats are following republicans which has turned az purple and soon blue and texas is following. Demographics. Many children of illegal aliens are born here and dreamers may get citizenship soon.
asset (0c1dec) — 8/5/2024 @ 8:58 pmAsset, I’m not so sure it’s true anymore that destiny is determined by demographics. Have you seen the greatly increased support Trump is getting from blacks and Hispanics?
norcal (252499) — 8/5/2024 @ 11:26 pmSan Ramon weather>>>>>>>>Houston weather
ABQ weather >>>>>> Houston weather
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/6/2024 @ 7:57 amAnd that’s because right as I was moving here (in the cursed Clinton years) we started making it virtually impossible for people like me to make it here.
Moving to coastal SoCal 1994-1999 wasn’t that terrible as the departure of most of aerospace to Georgia had dropped housing prices considerably. After that, you’d have to wait until 2009 to see prices stop rising.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/6/2024 @ 8:02 amDon’t let the door hit you on the way out!
Pretty much the attitude of the LA Times commenters. Soon, LA will be nothing but busboys and trustifarians.
Kevin M (a9545f) — 8/6/2024 @ 8:05 amhttps://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/01/climate/david-keith-solar-geoengineering.html
It’s not mistaken. It’s correct. If it’s a problem, and adaption to the (minor) climate change is not enough, that’s a solution, and, what’s more, it would work. unlike what the climate activists want, which is geoengineering that’s guaranteed not to work!
But it shouldn’t be done until the prospect of nuclear winter is over.
Sammy Finkelman (e4ef09) — 8/7/2024 @ 1:25 pm