Navigating Trust in Climate Conversations: The Oil Industry's Role

*This My Climate Journey podcast episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the Ion during Houston Energy and Climate Startup Week. 

Our guest is, Vicki Hollub, CEO of Occidental Petroleum (Oxy), a century-old oil and gas company employing over 12,000 people globally with a market cap near $50 billion. Recently the company has made significant investments into what they refer to as “carbon management” technologies including the acquisition of Carbon Engineering, a Direct Air Capture (DAC) company, in 2023 for $1.1 billion. Oxy is commercializing Carbon Engineering’s technology through its 1PointFive initiative and aims to deploy 70 DAC facilities by 2035. These efforts include recently receiving draft permits from the EPA for Class VI Injection wells, enabling the permanent geologic sequestration of CO₂, an advance market commitment from Microsoft to purchase 500,000 metric tons of carbon removal, and an award from the US Department of Energy for up to $500M to build a 1M ton per year facility.

The conversation covers a lot of territory. Vicki acknowledges climate change and its effects on extreme weather and natural ecosystems, while also stating that Oxy does not view the energy transition as a shift away from oil and gas. Instead, she describes a future where oil and gas exploration could become carbon-negative through advancements in enhanced oil recovery (EOR), a technology that uses CO₂ to extract fossil fuels from otherwise depleted wells.

This is a notable interview for MCJ as Vicki is the first oil and gas CEO we’ve had on the show. We believe it’s important to understand how a company like Oxy, which has a very large greenhouse gas emissions footprint, thinks about its future plans. We also know that many who listen to this show are interested in Oxy’s DAC efforts and their perspective on the future of the technologies and markets around it. 

Vicki became CEO in 2016, the first woman to lead a major American oil company. We are grateful to Katie Mehnert of ALLY Energy for connecting us with her for this conversation.

In this episode, we cover: 

• [03:28] Navigating the trust gap between O&G companies and the public
• [06:42] Vicki's early career path
• [08:32] The O&G boom in the Permian Basin in the mid-2000s
• [11:18] Vicki's path to becoming the first female CEO at Oxy
• [17:15] Changing dynamics and priorities while running a complex company like Oxy
• [18:00] How Vicki pitched Warren Buffet to invest in Oxy and navigated the impacts
• [21:11] How Oxy attracts and retains talent, plus generational differences
• [26:36] Challenges and opportunities Oxy sees in the energy transition
• [30:45] Navigating urgency relative to long-term planning
• [34:01] How the transition of innovation and legacy businesses could play out
• [44:36] Oxy's focus on carbon management, including direct air capture
• [49:55] Challenges in scaling DAC, including partnerships and funding
• [53:46] Vicki's thoughts on achieving a net-zero carbon barrel of oil
• [59:44] Her perspectives on the future of the oil and gas industry and its evolution

Episode recorded on Sept 11, 2024 (Published on Oct 1, 2024)

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*Editing and post-production work for this episode was provided by The Podcast Consultant