Chevron returns to Houston the week physical oil shortages are forecast

Chevron flew from Tres Amigos Airport, near Carlsbad, New Mexico, to Sugar Land Regional Airport outside Houston on May 20, a 64-minute hop back to headquarters the same week its chairman and CEO, Mike Wirth, publicly warned that physical oil shortages are beginning to emerge globally.

Speaking at the Milken Institute Global Conference, Wirth said that ongoing disruptions to the Strait of Hormuz — through which roughly 20% of the world's seaborne crude normally flows — have drawn down commercial inventories and strategic buffers to their lowest levels in years, per an account from [The Motley Fool](https://www.fool.com/investing/2026/05/12/chevrons-ceo-just-said-physical-oil-shortages-are/). He cautioned that economies in Asia and Europe will likely slow first as jet fuel and crude supplies tighten. The flight pattern in recent days shows repeated shuttles between the Permian Basin and Houston, consistent with Chevron's operational rhythm: its domestic production has increased nearly 60% over the past three years, much of it from the Permian, which the company described on [its website](https://www.chevron.com/newsroom/2026/q2/how-investments-in-us-energy-help-keep-supply-strong) as averaging over 1 million barrels of oil-equivalent per day.