Good morning. My name is Katie, and I will be your conference facilitator today. Welcome to Chevron's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker's remarks, there will be a question-and-answer session, and instructions will be given at that time. If anyone should require assistance during the conference call, please press star and the number zero on your touchtone telephone. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to the General Manager of Investor Relations of Chevron Corporation, Mr. Roderick Green. Please go ahead.
Thank you, Katie. Welcome to Chevron's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call and webcast. I'm Roderick Green, General Manager of Investor Relations. Our Chairman and CEO, Mike Wirth, and CFO, Pierre Breber, are on the call with me. Also listening in today is Jake Spiering, the incoming General Manager of Investor Relations, who will assume this position effective March 1. Jake and I will be transitioning together over the next couple of months. It's been my sincere pleasure working with each of you over the last two years. Thank you for your questions, feedback, and investment in Chevron. We will refer to the slides and prepare remarks that are available on Chevron's website. Before we begin, please be reminded that this presentation contains estimates, projections, and other forward-looking statements. Please review the cautionary statement on slide two. Now, I will turn it over to Mike.
Thank you, Roderick, and thanks everyone for joining us today. Chevron had an outstanding year in 2022, delivering record financial performance, producing more traditional energy, and advancing lower carbon businesses. Free cash flow set a record, beating our previous high in 2021 by more than $15 billion, enabling a strong dividend increase and the buyback of almost 4% of our shares. U.S. production was also our highest ever, led by double-digit growth in the Permian. Growth matters when it's profitable. Return on capital employed over 20% shows that our focus on capital efficiency is delivering results. We took important steps in building new energy businesses. We successfully integrated REG's people and assets into Chevron, combining the best of both companies' technical and commercial capabilities, and we acquired rights to pore space for potential Carbon Capture and Storage projects in Texas and Australia.
We had many other highlights last year, to name just a few. At TCO, project construction is largely complete, and we're starting up the fuel gas system. Focus is on commissioning and startup of the Wellhead Pressure Management project by the end of this year to begin transition of the field from high to low pressure. We announced a significant new gas discovery offshore Egypt, which could build on our growing natural gas position in the Eastern Med. Our affiliate, CPChem, reached FID for two world-scale ethylene and derivatives projects in Texas and Qatar. 2022 was a dynamic year, with unique macroeconomic and geopolitical forces disrupting economies and industries around the globe. These events remind us of the importance of affordable and reliable energy with a lower carbon intensity over time. We don't know what's ahead in 2023.
I do know that Chevron's approach will be clear and consistent, focused on capital, cost, and operational discipline, with the objective to safely deliver higher returns and lower carbon. With that, I'll turn it over to Pierre to discuss our financials.
Thanks, Mike. We reported fourth quarter earnings of $6.4 billion or $3.33 per share. Adjusted earnings were $7.9 billion or $4.09 per share. Included in the quarter were $1.1 billion in write-offs and impairments in our international upstream segment and negative foreign currency effects over $400 million. A reconciliation of non-GAAP measures can be found in the appendix to this presentation. Record operating cash flows in combination with continued capital efficiency resulted in over $37 billion of free cash flow in 2022. The only other year Chevron's operating cash flow exceeded $40 billion was 2011. Free cash flow in that year was less than 40% of this year's record.
In 2022, Chevron delivered outstanding results on all four of its financial priorities, announcing earlier this week another 6% increase in our dividend per share, positioning 2023 to be the 36th consecutive year with annual dividend payout increases. Investing within its organic budget despite cost inflation. In organic, CapEx totaled $1.3 billion, nearly 80% for new energy investments. Paying down debt in every quarter and ending the year with a 3% net debt ratio. Returning record annual cash to shareholders through buybacks and exiting the year with an annual repurchase rate of $15 billion. Two days ago, Chevron's board of directors authorized a new $75 billion share repurchase program. Now is a good time to look back on our execution of the prior programs.
Over the past nearly two decades, we bought back shares in more than three out of every four years, returning more than $65 billion to shareholders, and we've done it below the market average price during the whole time period. Going forward with the new program, our intent is the same: be a steady buyer of our shares across commodity cycles. With a break-even Brent price around $50 per barrel to cover our CapEx and dividend, and with excess balance sheet capacity, we're positioned to return more cash to shareholders in any reasonable oil price scenario. Turning to the quarter, adjusted earnings were down nearly $3 billion compared with last quarter. Adjusted upstream earnings decreased primarily on lower realizations and liftings, as well as higher exploration expense, partially offset by favorable timing effects.
Adjusted downstream earnings decreased primarily on lower refining and chemicals margins and negative timing effects, partially offset with higher sales volumes following third quarter turnarounds. The other segment charges increased mainly due to accruals for stock-based compensation. For the full year, adjusted earnings increased more than $20 billion compared to the prior year. Adjusted upstream earnings were up primarily due to increased realizations. Other items include higher exploration expenses, higher incremental royalties and production taxes due to higher prices, partially offset by favorable tax benefits and other items. Downstream adjusted earnings increased primarily due to higher refining margins, partially offset by lower chemical earnings and higher maintenance and turnaround costs. 2022 production was in line with guidance after adjusting for higher prices. As a reminder, Chevron's share of production is lower under certain international contracts when actual prices are higher than assumed in our guidance.
Reserves replacement ratio was nearly 100%, with the largest net additions in the Permian, Israel, Canada, and the Gulf of Mexico. Higher prices lowered our share of proved reserves by over 100 million bbl of oil equivalent. 2022 production is expected to be flat to up 3% at $80 Brent. After adjusting for lower prices and portfolio changes, primarily the sale of our Eagle Ford asset and the expiration of a contract in Thailand, we expect production to grow, led by the Permian and other shale and tight assets. We remain confident in exceeding our long-term production guidance. Looking ahead to 2023, I'll call out a few items. Earnings estimates from first quarter refinery turnarounds are mostly driven by El Segundo. Based on the current outlook, we expect higher natural gas costs for our California refineries.
Full year guidance for all other segment losses is lower this year due to higher expected interest income. Again excludes special items such as pension settlement costs. The all other segment can vary quarter to quarter and year to year. We estimate annual affiliate dividends between $5 billion and $6 billion, depending primarily on commodity prices and margins. The difference between affiliate earnings and dividends is expected to be less than $2 billion. We do not expect a dividend from TCO in the first quarter. We updated our earning sensitivities. About 20% of the Brent sensitivity relates to oil-linked LNG sales. We expect to maintain share buybacks at the top end of our guidance range during the first quarter. As a reminder in Venezuela, we use cost affiliate accounting, which means we will only record earnings if we receive cash.
We do not record production or reserves. 2022 was a record year for Chevron in many ways. We look forward to the future, confident in our strategy with a consistent objective to safely deliver higher returns and lower carbon. We'll share more during our Investor Day next month. Back to you, Roderick.
That concludes our prepared remarks. We're now ready to take your questions. Please try to limit yourself to one question and one follow-up. We'll do our best to get all your questions answered. Katie, please open the lines.
Thank you. If you have a question at this time, please press star one on your touchtone telephone. You may ask one question and a follow-up question. If your question has been answered or you wish to remove yourself from the queue, please press star two. If you're listening on a speakerphone, we ask you please lift your handset before asking your question to provide optimum sound quality. Again, if you have a question, please press star one on your touchtone telephone. Our first question comes from Jeanine Wai with Barclays.
Hi, good morning, everyone. Thanks for taking our questions.
Morning, Janine.
Before we get started... Hi, good morning, Mike. We'd like to wish Roderick well on his new position, and we really appreciate all your time and help over the past two years. Thank you very much. Our first question, maybe just heading towards the buyback authorization topic. This week, the board authorized the buyback authorization up to $75 billion, no expiration date, which is pretty large versus the prior authorization that had a four-year expiration date. We heard your comments on wanting to be a steady buyer of your shares across cycles and that you're positioned to return more cash to shareholders. Can you comment on the decision-making process for getting to that $75 billion and maybe the choice to leave the authorization open in timing versus the prior authorization did have an expiration date?
Yeah. Jeanine , let me start, and then I'll have Pierre add a little bit of color. you know, we included a little information in this call looking back at our past programs. you know, as you saw on the slide, 15 of the last 19 years, we've bought shares back lower than the market volume weighted average over that period of time. we look at the decision going forward in the context of, you know, the cash generating potential of the portfolio, the outlook for the market environment, the strength of the balance sheet. you know, we don't wanna be authorizing a program every year, so we talked to the board about a multi-year, you know, outlook.
The fact that there's not an end date on it is only significant if you're trying to do some sort of math and annualize this. We think our track record speaks for ourselves and with the steady, consistent way that we've done this. You know, we increased the rate three times last year as we saw the situation evolve and, you know, we're now at an all-time high with the rate of repurchases. You know, the last thing you said it, but I'll repeat it's sized, you know, to maintain our program through the commodity cycle. We aren't procyclical, we're not countercyclical, we're steady through the cycle, and that is, that is the intention. Pierre, do you want to add anything?
Jeanine. The authorization from 2019 was gonna be consumed in the second quarter. It was also open, so it did not have a defined time period. We just will have consumed it. Instead of having an authorization in the middle of a quarter, we'll complete this quarter's buybacks under the 2019 authorization, which again had an open time period, and then we'll start the new one April 1st. It is similar to the way it was done the prior time.
Thank you for that clarification. We appreciate that. Maybe our second question, it's that time of year again. Reserve replacement ratio. Your ratio for 2022 was 97%, we believe that compared to 112% last year, I think it was around 99% on average for the five years before that. Our question for you is just how do you see this ratio trending over time? I guess the over under bogey is probably 100%. Thank you.
Yeah. It can move in any given year, Jeanine, for a whole host of reasons, right? Prices, FID, decisions, you know, portfolio actions that we take to either, you know, sell or buy. The one-year number is one that will move around. The longer, cycle number is the one that you ought to pay attention to. Remember also, you know, as we, you know, have this large position in the Permian we continue to develop, we can only book, five years forward. Each year we'll produce out of the unconventional assets, and we'll add another year's worth of reserves on the, on the back end of that. If you were to look at the Permian unconstrained by that, you'd have a very different view.
You know, this year we had some additions in the Permian, in Israel, in Canada, and in the Gulf of Mexico, as Pierre mentioned. You know, the largest net reduction this year were Kazakhstan due to the contract terms and the effect of higher prices. If you were to actually adjust that out, so, you know, we mentioned 100 million bbl were the price effect, you know, this year would be, you know, think of it as 107% ex the price effect. I do think over time, you know, we intend to be in this business for quite a while, and 100% is a number that you ought to expect to see that or greater over time.
In any given year or any short number of years, you might see something that looks a little bit different.
We'll take our next question from Devin McDermott with Morgan Stanley.
Hey, good morning. Thanks for taking my question. First of all, Roderick, wanted to echo Jeanine's congrats on the new role, and thank you for all the help over the years. It's been great working with you. I wanted to focus in on upstream. It's good to see the continued progress on TCO and exciting to be getting close to the finish line on the extension project there. You noted that WPMP is on track for commissioning and startup later this year. I just wanted to first confirm that the second part of that expansion, FGP, is still on track for 2024. Just stepping back, could you just walk us through your latest expectations to the impacts on both TCO production, CapEx, and also affiliate dividends as these projects come online?
I'm trying to get a sense of the changes in 2024 versus 2023, and then also how you think about the run rate on both volumes and spending for that affiliate post FGP.
Yeah. Devin, I'll talk to the project and let Pierre talk a little bit to the financials. First of all, no change to cost or schedule guidance. WPMP is trending toward beginning startup by the end of this year. We've got a lot of work done. We've got a new power grid up and running, and this was a power grid built back in Soviet days. The control room is up and running, where everything comes into one central control room. All the production and gas injection wells are done. The gas injection facility is now in early commissioning.
In just the next few days, we'll tie in the fuel gas system to the first gas turbine generator, which is really an important milestone to test the first of the three GTGs, begin the process of, you know, powering up, you know, electrical generation capacity and commissioning boilers, steam, and other utilities. That all, you know, happens sequentially here over the next period of time, which leads to commissioning the pressure boost compressors in the 3rd quarter, beginning the conversion from low to high or from high to low pressure by the end of the year. Couple of things that'll bear on production. We've got two planned turnarounds of the old processing trains. They're called the KTLs. There's five of them.
We got two turnarounds this year that are planned in the third quarter, so those will be down for a period of time. As those come back up, production may not fully recover on those two, as some of the wells, won't resume flowing until we get to the low-pressure system. Back half of the year, you'll see a little bit of that impact. As we move into 2024, we've got more of these high-pressure to low-pressure conversions in the field, and we've got FGP startup, first half of 2024. You don't see the full effect of FGP roll through. You'll get partial effect in ramping in 2024, and then the full effect will show in 2025. Cash will kind of follow that pattern.
Pierre, maybe you can talk about the, you know, the pattern on CapEx and dividends.
Yeah, for 2023, the TCO dividends are included in the guidance we provided of $5 billion, $6 billion, which is up from what our total dividends that we received last year. We did indicate that TCO has held a little excess cash during the course of last year just due to uncertainties that are going on right now. The CapEx was included in our December release, so it's nearly half of the $3 billion of affiliate CapEx, so that's $1.5 billion. Again, you'd expect that to continue to roll off next year.
If you go back to our Investor Day, we showed that at $60 Brent, you know, post-startup in a, in a full year of FGP production, that the free cash flow coming out of TCO on a 100% basis would be $10 billion. That's at $60 Brent. We'll provide, you know, further updates as we normally do on Investor Day. The takeaway, as we've said for a long time now, we've been investing in this project for, you know, six-plus years, through COVID, through the ups and downs. When it starts up, it'll generate a lot of free cash flow. We'll see that in the form of dividends, and we'll see that in the form of paying back some of the loans that we co-lent into TCO.
Yeah, Devin, just to kind of put a final punctuation on that. In our Investor Day last year, we showed in 2026, so once we get fully on the other side of all this stuff I just described, a 5x expansion in free cash flow out of TCO versus 2021. It's meaningful.
Okay, great. Thank you very much for the helpful answer there. Then thinking about this year, 2023, in more detail, you talked about 0%-3% total production growth for the year led by shale in the Permian. Last year you had another strong one for the Permian. You know, the volumes were up 16%. I was wondering if you could just talk through your expectations for that asset in 2023, whether or not you're adding rigs there, overall activity trends. Then more broadly, within that 0%-3% range, what are some of the drivers that could move you to the upper or lower end as we move through the year?
Maybe I'll finish on the... I think the second question was about overall production, and the first was about Permian. You know, our outlook for 2023 at $80 is flat to up 3%. That puts between three and three point one million bbl a day. There's a modest adjustment to that relative to our Investor Day guidance. A couple of things driving that, some project deferrals, like Mad Dog Two, which we thought would start up in 2022 and now looks like a 2023 start-up. We've got some downtime, plans downtime that shifted from 2022 to 2023. Our Permian growth will be a little bit lower in 2023. A couple of things.
One, in 2022, we had the benefit of a lot of prior DUCs that had been sitting that came online, and it goosed early production in 2022 a little bit more. We also are reoptimizing some of our development plans to factor in some of the things we continue to learn relative to interactions between wells and benches, how we, you know, space laterals and do single or multi-bench developments. Our revised plan will have some deeper targets, a few more rig moves and a few more single bench developments, all of which brings that pace down a little bit. That's kind of at the, at the highest level, what is behind the production numbers. We'll talk about that more when we see you guys in a month here.
Maybe I'll stop there because I did cover the Permian, as part of that. Thanks, Devin.
Katie, we can go to the next question. Katie, can you hear us?
We'll take our next question from Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs.
Good morning, team, congrats here on a good year. Mike, I guess the first question I have for you is around global gas. Maybe you could talk about how you're seeing the market. There's obviously been a tremendous amount of volatility. Remind us again, you know, how you're positioned from a contracted versus spot position? I have a follow-up on gas as well in the Eastern Med.
Okay. Well, you know, high level, you know, we certainly have seen a very unusual and volatile year in 2022, which has settled out here as we've come into the winter, primarily as, you know, we've seen a bit milder winter in the northern hemisphere than is typical. As in Europe, the successful build of inventories for this year and the reduction of industrial demand have both resulted in an outlook that is, you know, less dire for the European economies than it may have looked like several months ago. I think the market reflects all of that. You also have the fact that China has been, you know, the economy's been slow throughout the year, which is, you know, looks to be turning around.
I think it's good that markets have calmed. I mean, the high prices really were creating a lot of stresses out there that are not good. I hope we see these prices stay in a more moderate range, as we, you know, enter 2023. Our posture is largely as we've described it before. We're primarily contracted on oil, index pricing, you know, biggest piece obviously out of Australia. We do have, you know, we ran really well in Australia last year, record number of cargoes, and so there were some spot cargoes in the mix out of Australia. Out of West Africa, we've got a little more spot exposure, in, you know, Angola and, you know, now with Equatorial Guinea as well.
But think of us as primarily oil linked. You know, we've got some sensitivities, I think, that Pierre has put out there, and we've reiterated some of those in the guidance today that should help you know, model these things based on your assumptions on gas prices.
Yeah. Thanks, Mike. That's the follow-up. You have a large gas position in the Eastern Mediterranean following the Noble acquisition with Leviathan and Tamar and some discoveries out there as well. How do you think about prosecuting that asset? Where does it fall in terms of prioritization, and how big can it be?
Yeah, it's a high priority. You know, we took FID at the end of last year on a project to expand Tamar from, on a 100% basis, one point one to one point six BCF per day. The first gas on that should come online in early 2025. We are working on development options to expand Leviathan. Those are still being worked. You know, we should narrow the concepts on that later this year and reach some decisions in terms of how we intend to do that. The Nargis discovery, it's just one well at this point, but it encountered, you know, a significant section of high-quality, gas-bearing sandstone. Very attractive. We're talking to our partner there about appraisal and development concepts that will follow.
That region. Of course, we've got a number of additional exploration blocks further to the west in the Mediterranean that we've not yet put any wells into, but we've got seismic and we're developing our exploration plans, and you'll hear more about that as we go forward. It's a high priority. The region needs gas, both, you know, regionally in the Middle East, but also then obviously options to try to get that gas into Europe. The Noble acquisition was really advantageous from that standpoint. We're optimistic about the prospectivity of some of these additional exploration blocks.
All right. We'll stay tuned. Thanks, Mike.
Okay. Thank you, Neil.
We'll take our next question from Doug Leggate with Bank of America.
Thanks, everyone. Roderic, I'd like to also pass on my thanks. You've transformed how Chevron does investor relations. Thank you for all your help. Guys, I wonder if I could go back to the buyback. I just wanna try and understand a little bit about the comment around really just how you think about the purpose of the buyback. Is this really about dividend management at this point? It seems to us that if you take your Brent sensitivity into account, the run rate at the high end of the range puts you about a $90 break even on your oil price. I'm just wondering if this is about value or about managing confidence in future dividend growth.
Well, let me try to be clear on this, Doug. We do not do buybacks to manage dividends. Dividend, absolute dividend load is an outcome. It's not a reason that you would do buyback. Our dividend growth expresses confidence in the ability to grow free cash flow at mid-cycle prices, and it is a long-term decision, a long, long, long-term decision. We haven't cut the dividend since the Great Depression. Pierre mentioned we've increased the payout 36 years in a row now. Buybacks are different. They signal confidence that we're gonna generate excess free cash flow, or we've got excess balance sheet capacity, which we have significant capacity in the current commodity cycle.
As we satisfy our commitments on the dividend, our reinvestment plans in a disciplined manner to grow free cash flows, and maintain that strong balance sheet, we've got the capacity then to buy shares back through the cycle. You know, an outcome of buybacks is a lower absolute dividend, but it's not the driver. There should be no confusion about that. We've got confidence in our dividend increases, whether we're buying shares back or not. We wouldn't increase the dividend if we didn't have that confidence, and so the two are not linked in that manner.
That's very clear. Thanks, Mike. My follow-up, it's a bit unfair giving your analyst day is a month away, but I'm gonna give this a go anyway. If you made the point, your dividend, your balance sheet's in terrific shape, obviously. You've got a lot of capacity there. Also, if I go back to that sort of $90 break even, I'm all doing is taking the $15 billion run rate, $400 million a year and adding it to the $50 break even, $90 bucks. What does that say about your outlook for us maybe stepping up growth capital? That would seem to imply that the growth capital, the $17 billion sort of CapEx number is probably what we should expect going forward.
Is that the right way to think about it, or should we wait until the end of the month, the end of February?
Yeah. I mean, we'll talk about it more in February, Doug. I'm not sure I followed all your math there, but we're growing. We got a 3% compound annual growth rate at $15 billion-$17 billion of CapEx in a market that's not growing that fast. We're growing well better than the overall demand for oil or for gas, which is growing faster than oil is. We are growing production, but what we're really focused on is growing returns and cash flow. If we can grow returns and cash flow, the equation works. You know, I'm, you know, we'll be happy to talk about this more when we're together at the end of the month, but or at the end of next month.
You know, we can, we can grow cash flow, we can improve returns at the rate that we're spending at. I don't know, why, you know, there would be a question as, you know, about our ability to do that. The production number is an outcome of those decisions. It's not the goal. Appreciate the answers. We'll see you soon. Thank you.
We'll take our next question from John Royall with JP Morgan.
Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking my question. Maybe just a kind of a spin on Doug's question. With the balance sheet at 3%, is there a point where you think of yourself as actually underlevered? And I realize that's a good problem to have, but if you ever got to that point, would the mechanism be to get leverage higher by increasing the buyback? Or how do you think about that generally? Is the 3% kind of where you want to be?
This is Pierre. I'll take that. Our guidance is for the net debt ratio to be between 20% and 25% at mid-cycle conditions. As you said, we're at 3%, so we're much stronger than that. That's what happens in the short term. Mike has talked about our financial priorities. They're simple. We've been consistent with them for a very long time, and three of the four are pegged. We just increased our dividend 6%. We have a 2023 CapEx budget of $14 billion. We've given guidance that keeps that CapEx flat over the next several years. We have the buybacks at the top end of the guidance range of $15 billion. Swings in cash flow in the short term will go to the balance sheet.
Because commodity prices and margins, we just were talking about natural gas prices and refining margins and things are moving up and down. Over the long term, those cash flows will be returned to shareholders. We wanna do it in a way that is steady across the cycle. As Mike said, we don't wanna be procyclical. By the way, we haven't, right? Our track record shows that over the past nearly two decades, that we've been able to buy actually below what the market average price has been. The intent is to, yeah, we'll be a little strong balance sheet, depending on commodity prices and margins and how strong our operations have been. Over time, the cycle will correct, we'll continue buying back shares.
We've said we could have a higher buyback rate right now. We're sizing it at a level to maintain it for multiple years across the cycle. That means there'll be a time period where we'll be buying back shares off the balance sheet, and we'll lever back up closer to that 20%-25% guidance. Thanks, John.
Very clear. Thank you, Pierre. Just a follow-up on the CPC project. Was hoping you could give an update on the CPC terminal operationally and kinda where that stands. What types of discounts are you seeing at that terminal right now? I think you called out a few quarters ago or maybe two quarters ago that it was $6 or $7 per barrel. I imagine that's come in a bit. Where's that discount today, and how's that terminal operating?
You know, last year there was probably more news than there was impact on a variety of issues relative to the pipeline and the terminal. There was work going on in the kinda late third and into the fourth quarters on two of the three Single Point Moorings. All that work is done. All three SVMs are operational today. There are no constraints on loading. There are no constraints on throughput on the pipe. You know, despite a lot of the things that people heard and worried about last year, the pipeline was very reliable. Our production was impacted less than 10,000 bbl a day over the course of the year. It was only a few weeks in March and April.
Everything there is running very smoothly now, and we don't see any constraints. Discounts have come in a little bit on CPC. You know, in the immediate aftermath of some of the sanctions and changes, you know, related to Ukraine, we saw a trading range that was, like, $4-$10 below a Dated Brent. Before the conflict began, it was ±$1. We're seeing kinda $1-$3 discounts now, so maybe not quite at pre-invasion levels, but not as deep as they were immediately afterwards. Given the overall, you know, flat price environment, and the way it has strengthened, the impact to TCO is relatively muted.
We'll take our next question from Roger Read with Wells Fargo.
Yeah, thank you. Good morning.
Hello, Roger.
Hey, morning, guys. Just looking at, let's call it, refined product demand. You talked about gas demand earlier. I'm just curious, as you look around the world, you know, we've got the positives of moving away from COVID on a year-over-year comparison. Everybody's got high expectations for the China reopening. I was just curious, as you look across your operating base, what you're seeing there?
Yeah. You know, overall, Roger, gasoline demand, I'll start there, still just a touch below pre-pandemic levels. Fourth quarter of 2022, maybe 2% or 3% below fourth quarter of 2019. If you look at diesel, demand's pretty flat versus pre-pandemic. Jet, recovering, but still below. At the highest level, we're kind of still flattish to recovering from pre-COVID. I think that's why there is concern that as China's economy really does come through and return to a more normal level, that we could see increased demand start to pull on these markets again. You've seen announcements out of China about their intention.
We see, you know, international flights and air travel now being scheduled at much higher levels than we'd seen before long. If you see the kind of rebound spending and activity in that economy that we've seen in other economies around the world, that's one of the things that could, you know, buoy the global economy and firm up demand for products. You know, there's still some variables in the equation. You know, we're not past the risk of recession. Clearly, central banks are still tightening to slow things in certain parts of the world. There's some puts and takes. Net-net, you know, this continues to trend in a, in a recovering direction, with the two biggest questions probably related to the two biggest economies, China and the U.S.,
Always the big guys, right? follow-up question to come back to the Permian, and I recognize the Investor Day coming. Pierre, when we were at the sell side dinner end of November, you know, there was a lot of discussion over kind of the changing of the range and how, you know, that was really just a function of messaging more so than, you know, overall change in the way you're developing the Permian. Kind of following from that to, you know, the comments about, you know, things a little different in the bench and, you know, the DUC comparisons year over year. Do you look at it as any different from the messaging at the end of November, or is this, you know, is there something else here?
No, nothing different. We'll show that at our Investor Day. Again, we were in the middle of the range. You could see the fourth quarter number was 738, that was strong. We had some learnings, as Mike said, in 2022. We've adjusted our plans to go to deeper targets and more single bench developments. That results in a little longer drilling times and a few more rig moves. We'll update all that. All that's obviously included in our production guidance. Yeah, we'll continue to learn and adapt in the Permian. It's a large royalty advantage position. It's an asset that delivers higher returns and lower carbon. It's a big source of free cash flow.
Our free cash flow growth over the next five years is really driven by Permian, Tengiz, Gulf of Mexico, a few other assets. It's remarkable to have an asset that can grow at that rate and do it free cash flow positive the whole time and free cash flow growing the whole time. It, it will ebb and flow a little bit as we learn more, but what you'll see at our Investor Day is something very consistent with what we're saying today and what we've said in the past.
Roger, just to emphasize a point I made earlier to another one of the questions, we remain focused on returns and value, not on production. You know, that's what drives all of this. Thanks.
We'll take our next question from Irene Himona with Société Générale.
Thank you very much for taking my questions, which are both related, I will ask both at the same time. Firstly, thinking about balance sheet strength, of course, the other use it can be put to is M&A. You've been very disciplined with your M&A timings, both with Noble and REG. How do you see the current market in these two, let's say, pots, legacy oil and gas versus low carbon? Secondly, has the IRA act perhaps changed your appetite for a faster expansion in low carbon businesses, please? Thank you.
Thank you, Irene. You know, we do have the capacity to do M&A. We don't need to do M&A, we'll only do deals that are value-creating deals. You interestingly contrast, you know, the traditional oil and gas market with the new energies market. What I would observe is, given commodity price strength in oil and gas, we've seen companies that previously might have been, you know, languishing from a value standpoint, you know, strengthen. I think there's some optimism in the, you know, the eyes of other companies about the future. The bid-ask spread on oil and gas companies is, you know, maybe a little wider right now given the, you know, the strength versus when we, you know, did our deal two years ago.
In lower carbon, with interest rates rising and, you know, SPACs kind of receding and the like, a little bit of the, you know, kind of froth may have come out of that market. There's still, you know, some optimism in valuations there as well. We'll be very thoughtful and careful as we evaluate those. There are a lot of companies out there that have got, you know, business models in this space. So we watch them all. We will be back to talk to you if we have anything that's interesting. Let me touch on IRA and then ask Pierre to add a little more color. The IRA will probably accelerate some activity in the U.S., There, there's no doubt.
Hopefully, what that does is allows technologies to be de-risked, the cost of technologies to be reduced, and the attractiveness of these investments to improve. You know, a bill like that with a kind of a grab bag of different policy incentives doesn't necessarily change our long-term view on how we wanna build businesses. It does perhaps change the trajectory at which some of those businesses become more economically viable. If that's the case, that could feed through into our similar investment decision. It's kind of a second-order effect rather than a first-order effect.
Just to add some of the other important effects, permitting, really critical for traditional energy, super critical for new energy. New technology developments. You've seen us make some investments on technology to reduce the cost of capture of CO2. Scale, you know, getting costs down. It's helpful, but it's just one element, as Mike said.
Thanks, Irene.
Thank you very much.
We'll take our next question from Ryan Todd with Piper Sandler.
Great. Thanks. Maybe, if I could ask a couple on the downstream side. First, there's been a lot of noise early this year about refinery maintenance activity looking to be well above average in the U.S., particularly during the first half of the year, especially amongst independent refiners. Your first quarter guidance seems to suggest turnaround activity in 1Q that's reasonably light or at least not terribly heavy. Any thoughts on whether your 2023 outlook as a whole for Chevron looks normal or heavy in terms of refining maintenance? Maybe, you know, more broadly, how you see general tightness in global refining markets this year, or over the course of 2023.
Yeah, I would say it's a pretty typical year for turnaround activity. We've got the FCC at El Segundo in the first quarter of this year, which Pierre mentioned in his comments. There's nothing unusual in our turnaround plan for this year. You know, what you do see across the U.S. and I think in some of the other markets are two things that are really kind of still echoes of COVID. One, is you're just seeing capacity go out of the system. Two, you see maintenance that was deferred during COVID, is, you know, it's gonna have to be rescheduled and replanned.
There's probably still a bit of a bow wave pushing through the system in some places of activity that needs to get done, for, you know, safety and reliability and regulatory reasons. That could be driving some of the speculation. I can't really comment on other companies' plans. I'll let you talk to them about that.
Thanks. Then maybe on the other side of your downstream business, on the chemical side, you know, it's clearly been weak for the last little while. Looking forward from here, is the combination of lower natural gas prices and the reopening of China having any impact on how you see margins moving throughout 2023? Or do you anticipate that oversupply keeps things weaker throughout the year?
You know, these tend to be long period cycles for the most part, Ryan. At the margin, I think that's, you know, economic growth and, you know, development in China is a positive. You don't, you don't slide into the lower part of the cycle, quickly or easily, and you generally don't come out of it quickly or easily. These things track over a longer period of time. I do think we're, you know, it feels like we're kind of bumping along near a bottom here, but I don't know that there's a steep climb out as opposed to a gradual climb over time.
Thank you. We'll take our next question from Jason Gabelman with Cowen.
Morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I wanted to first follow up on the affiliate distribution guidance because it is taking a step higher, year over year, and it sounds like that was due to TCO having excess cash. Is that kind of $5 billion-$6 billion something you can maintain, assuming oil price stays stable until the project actually starts up, until TCO FGP starts up, or would you expect that to fall off after this year? My second question is on a different topic, Venezuela. I believe you have now boots on the ground there again. Can you just discuss what you're seeing in terms of the health of the infrastructure there, the ability to ramp production and the desire from Chevron's standpoint to participate in that? Thanks.
The first one.
On affiliate dividends, there are two main factors of why the guidance this year is higher than last year. You hit one of them on TCO, not, you know, held excess cash last year. The second big one is Angola LNG. If you recall, a lot of their cash distributions were actually return to capital. It's an accounting concept, tied to whether you have book equity or positive book equity or not. Now they're in that space. We expect most, if not all, of the cash coming from Angola LNG in 2023 to be characterized as dividends. It was cash either way. It's just one shows up in cash from ops, the other one shows up in a different part of the cash flow statement, but that's the second driver.
In terms of the direction, I mean, this guidance is kind of notionally at, you know, the current futures curve around $80. It depends on commodity prices and margins. There's some downstream affiliates in there, and there's some chemicals obviously in there. We talked about TCO. I mean, TCO is heading up, right? As CapEx comes down and production comes up, we expect more dividends out of TCO going forward. Again, we have the loan that we also expect TCO to pay back during the next several years.
Yeah, Jason, on Venezuela, we always did have boots on the ground. We just were very limited in where those boots could go and what they could do. The shift in the sanctions policy has opened up a little more room. It's allowed us to You know, have influence and involvement in some of the decision-making. Your question about the state of the infrastructure, you know, there's been a lack of investment there for a number of years, and the infrastructure reflects that, and it'll take time for things to turn around.
We have seen some positive production response already in the entities that we're involved in. They're producing about 90,000 bbl a day now, which is up about 40,000 bbl a day since we saw the change in these license terms. That's been a good short-term effect. I'm not gonna say you can extrapolate that, but it's where we are today. We are continuing to work on the ground to expand production, but it's too early to guide to anything. We're also lifting oil and bringing it to the U.S., We've got a couple of cargos coming into our Pascagoula Refinery. We're gonna be delivering cargos to other customers on the Gulf Coast, and then the revenues go into a series of, you know, structured channels to pay expenses and other obligations.
On the accounting standpoint, we're using cost-affiliated accounting, so we'll record earnings only if we receive cash. At this point, I would say the cash flows are expected to be modest. You know, this is a stepwise change in the environment there. We're gonna go into it thoughtfully. It's a six-month license, and, you know, it's a dynamic environment. We'll continue to advise you as we learn more as things evolve.
Great. Thanks a lot for the detail.
You bet.
We'll take our next question from Sam Margolin with Wolfe Research.
Hey, good morning. Thank you.
Of course.
I'll ask about the Rockies. The Rockies is interesting. It's a place where you could maybe add a little bit of activity to pace, you know, your aggregate lower 48 activity levels, but without, you know, some of the inflationary pressures, and just infrastructure tightness in the Permian and an inventory depth there is good. Is the Rockies a place where there may be a little bit of extra focus? I ask that in the context of sort of the broader theme around your overall resource depth and, you know, production and all these topics that are sort of flowing into the broader conversation today.
Yeah, absolutely, Sam. You know, we got over 320,000 net acres there. Last year, we started out with one rig and one frack crew. We ended the year with three rigs and two frack crews working. You know, the plan for this year is activity in that level. It's been a positive movement in terms of activity and production expectations there. It's a really nice resource. It's a low carbon resource. You know, we got a lot of this is powered off the grid. You know, there's been some permitting questions about this in the past.
There's been large areas done under development plans, and we've got permits well out into the future and continue to work that closely with the authorities there. You know, it's one we can talk about a little bit more at Investor Day. It's a really positive, you know, addition to our portfolio out of Noble. The Eastern Med gets a lot of attention, but we're very excited about the DJ.
Okay. Yeah, just to follow up, I mean, 'cause obviously with between, I think you can surmise the reserve numbers getting some attention, the overall pace of activity and production trends over the long term are getting attention. You know, we'll get to this at the Analyst Day, I'm sure. Is there a way right now where you can kind of add it all up and size, you know, the Gulf of Mexico, other shale and type, Eastern Med gas, and just kind of frame that aggregate resource number against, you know, maybe what you see in the portfolio today as tail resource and just speak, you know, to a final answer around, you know, your organic portfolio and how it, how it extends?
Yeah. You know, I might have Roderick work with you so we're clear on the question when we get to the Investor Day on how to compare and size things relative to the portfolio. You know, we said today in our press release that we're very confident we're going to exceed our 3% compound annual growth rate over the next five years. You can't do that unless you got depth in the portfolio, which we have, and you got quality projects, and they're moving along on a good pace. So, I'll assure you that that is the case. We will talk about this more at Investor Day, and you'll have a chance to kind of go deeper into it with our folks.
We'll take our next question from Paul Sankey with Sankey Research.
Hi. Good morning, everyone. Roderick, congratulations. All the best. Mike, I was a bit surprised by the major buyback announcement. Obviously, the $75 billion is very splashy, but within that, it seems that your guidance has remained that you'll be in the $5 billion-$15 billion a year range based on the Q1 guidance. Are you expecting to step that up, or is this a five-year authorization? Were you conscious that it would probably cause a lot of political backlash? Thanks.
You know, Pierre answered the question earlier. It's not a five-year authorization. It's an open-ended authorization. You know, it's our intent to maintain it across the cycle. I'll just say that again. It's actually aligned with our upside and our downside cases from the 2022 Investor Day and consistent with our track record of being in the market steadily, buying $2 below the market over nearly the past two decades. You know, we could increase our guidance range, Paul. We'd need to be confident we could maintain that higher rate for multiple years across the cycle. And I think that you should read it as a signal of confidence and we'll continue to talk more. We raised our buyback rate three times last year.
We're not averse to doing that, and I would just say, stay tuned. In terms of the reaction to it, I think it's, you know, perhaps been a touch overblown, you know, given that it's an open-ended program, and we could have sized a smaller one and just been prepared to do another one sooner. You know, Pierre said we're closing one out. We just looked at something that would last over a number of years, and we weren't trying to be splashy. We weren't trying to create any reaction out there. We're just trying to indicate the confidence we have in our cash generation.
Understood. An offset to that, Mike, you're spending more on exploration. Could you just talk about the highlights that you see coming up in 2023? Obviously, we're aware of East Med, but, you know, there's other stuff out there, and the spending has stepped up quite a lot, hasn't it?
Yeah. I don't know if I'd describe the spending as being up quite a lot. We've got a nice portfolio that we like. And I'll just touch on you mentioned Eastern Med. We still have a lot of, you know, blocks in the Deepwater Gulf of Mexico. We've got blocks in Suriname that we're still working on and that are on trend with some of the things in that region. We've picked up acreage in Namibia that's on trend with explorations in that part of the world as well. We got stuff in Brazil, we got stuff in Mexico that, you know, we acquired a few years prior to that. We've got a nice portfolio of opportunities that we continue to work on.
You know, we don't go out and drill the wells until we're ready to drill them. It's spread across a number of basins where there's, you know, good working oil and gas systems. You know, the Nargis discovery is a recent example of what happens when you focus in those areas. You know, I'm optimistic that we're gonna see more of that in the future.
Thanks.
Our last question comes from Biraj Borkhataria with RBC.
Hey, there. Thanks for taking my question. The first one's on the share count. Just going back to early 2022, there was a period where, you know, you're stepping up the buyback program, but the dilution from the employee options were sort of offsetting that all. I'm just trying to understand. I know you took a charge today in the corporate line. Do you expect 2023 dilution to be a similar level to 2022 or should it be lower? Just any sense on that would be helpful.
We expect fewer employee and retiree exercises of stock options. That was extraordinarily unusual in the first quarter, and it's a zero-sum game. In other words, if employees and retirees do it early, there's fewer to do going forward. That, that'll be up to them and the stock price performance. The share buybacks, I mean, you just divide, depends on what our stock price is. You know, we give guidance quarterly, and I think you can do the math. It is confusing, the difference between average annual share counts and where we end, right? We are clearly taking our share count down, but when you look at average annuals, that's, is exactly what it implies. It's an annual each day. The trend is going down.
Our buybacks exceed, the issuances, and we expect that to continue.
That's very clear. The second question is just thinking about asset sales. Looking at your guidance, 2023 plans are fairly muted. I appreciate that you're basically at close to zero debt, so you don't actually need to do anything. In a high commodity price environment and maybe countercyclically, you might wanna accelerate some things. Is this a function of just the limited, you know, cleanup needed in the portfolio or a view on bid-ask spread or anything else? Just get your view on the asset sale market at the moment. Thank you.
Yeah. Biraj, we are a little lower than what our typical level of guidance has been or level of activity. Over the last decade, you know, we've generated about $35 billion in asset sales. you know, that's, say, three and a half. There was some portfolio cleanup underway there that was, you know, needed to be done, and we got good value as we sold those. You're always looking at your tail. There's always, you know, when you, when you sell things off, there's a new, you know, part of your portfolio and say, "Okay, this sits at the margin." you're always challenging that.
If we were to find, you know, interested buyers in some of the things that might fit better for others than they do for us, we could, you know, transact on that. This is, you know, the guidance that we've got right now and the things that are underway and in process is what we've put out there. We'll update you if there's any changes to that.
The only add, Biraj, we don't do asset sales to raise cash or to manage the balance sheet. We do it based on what Mike just said, high grading of the portfolio, where we can get the best returns for capital, projects that can compete for capital. Some of the impairments that we took in the fourth quarter are a result and outcome of projects that are good projects, they're just not good enough to clear the bar. It does ebb and flow a little bit as Mike has said, I just wanna be clear, we do it as part of our capital discipline and having driving higher returns and lower carbon. It's an outcome of that. It ebbs and flows. It's a little low this year. We expect it to go back higher in future years.
I would like to thank everyone for their time today.
Okay. Understood.
Thanks, Biraj. I would like to thank everyone for your time today. We appreciate your interest in Chevron and everyone's participation on today's call. Please stay safe and healthy. Katie, back to you.
Thank you. This concludes Chevron's fourth quarter 2022 earnings conference call. You may now disconnect.