Chevron’s chief executive on Wednesday touted the company’s Texas growth, from the Permian Basin to Houston refining and chemicals.

Speaking at the Greater Houston Partnership’s annual “State of Energy” luncheon, Mike Wirth also urged the energy industry to take the lead on emissions reductions to help combat climate change, the Houston Chronicle reported.

“I think this area (Houston) will be the center of the energy universe for a long time to come,” Wirth said.

Chevron recently acquired the Pasadena, Texas, refinery in the region, continues to expand its petrochemical footprint in Baytown and Sweeny, Texas, via its Chevron Phillips Chemical joint venture, and keeps growing offshore in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico, Kallanish Energy understands.

Another major area of growth is in the Permian Basin in West Texas/southeast New Mexico. Noting Chevron was criticized a few years ago for moving slowly in the Permian on its large legacy acreage, Wirth said that was the plan.

“What is in our wheelhouse is methodically planning and executing,” he said, and doing “factory drilling – the same thing over and over again,” the Chronicle reported.

Chevron has emerged as the second-largest producer in the Permian. The California-based supermajor would have become No. 1 this year if it had won the bidding against Occidental Petroleum to buy Anadarko Petroleum.

Instead, Oxy paid $38 billion for Anadarko and Chevron walked away with a $1 billion breakup fee from Anadarko.

Fellow supermajor ExxonMobil is by far the most active driller in the Permian and quickly playing catch up, the Chronicle reported.

Wirth also said Chevron went slowly in the Permian in part so it could have all the pipeline hookups in place to reduce emissions and flaring.

Wirth acknowledged the company must improve its emissions reductions in some of the more remote parts of the world. Chevron last week said it will adopt new goals to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions from its oil and gas production by 2023.

The company looks to cut its emissions from crude oil production by 5-10% and its methane emissions from natural gas production by 2-5% from 2016 to 2023.

This post appeared first on Kallanish Energy News.