Chevron CEO Justifies Moving From California to Texas, "It's a tough place to do business."

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Chevron announced last week that it is relocating its corporate headquarters from San Ramon, California, to Texas. The decision comes as the company faces increasing challenges operating in California, according to Andy Walz, Chevron's president of Americas products.

Walz explained to reporters that the company has been gradually moving employees from the San Ramon headquarters to the new location in Texas. This transition reflects Chevron's response to the growing difficulties of conducting business in the Golden State.

"We've been doing that because California is a tough place to do business," Walz stated. "It's a tough place to recruit people. It's a tough place to move employees. A lot of our employees move up through the company, they gain experience in different geographies, different locations, and we have a lot of people who will not move to California. That makes it difficult."

He further emphasized that this relocation is part of a broader strategy to improve company performance. "We have been moving the company's employee base to Houston for a long time. This is another step on that journey," Walz said. "We're doing that because it's going to drive better performance for Chevron. Today, our leadership teams are spread across two different states, we're not together as much, so there's efficiencies, there's effectiveness by doing that."

The high cost of living in California has also been a significant factor in Chevron's decision. "California's a tough place to have a big employee base. It's tough. Cost of living is expensive. And we were not able to get employees that didn't live there to move there and that's not sustainable for us, to be honest," Walz said.

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