Chevron lands in New Mexico the week of West Texas layoffs and a fuel crisis

Chevron flew a Boeing Business Jet, tail N884GL, from Lea County-Jal Airport to a remote airstrip near Carlsbad, New Mexico, on the morning of June 9. The 31-minute hop from E26 to a site at 32.338, -104.256 arrived just after 8:49 a.m. local time, touching down in the heart of the Permian Basin, the company’s most productive U.S. oil field.

The flight arrives the same month Chevron notified the Texas Workforce Commission of 200 layoffs at its Midland County facilities, per a May 16 WARN Act filing corrected from an initially reported 800 cuts [foundernews.eu]. CEO Mike Wirth is simultaneously navigating a deepening Strait of Hormuz crisis: in a Bloomberg interview this week, he confirmed six Chevron-chartered vessels are stuck in the waterway and that global jet-fuel and gasoline inventories are drawing down [energynewsbeat.com]. Jal sits less than 50 miles from Chevron’s Midcontinent headquarters campus in Midland, where 185 of those job cuts will take effect July 15.

The pattern is familiar: Chevron’s BBJ has shuttled between Midland-area fields and Houston in recent days, including a June 5 hop from Midland Airpark to Bush Intercontinental. This outpost visit, however, points to tightening operational pressure on the ground—both from the Permian reorganization and from the global supply shocks that Wirth warned will keep energy prices elevated “for some time.”