Texaco

It is difficult, perhaps even intellectually incompatible, for the state of Maryland to advocate -- as it did -- a stringent agreement with neighboring states to protect the Chesapeake Bay and then to give Texaco the OK to drill a mile and half from the Potomac River. But this, unfortunately, is not that simple a matter.First, Texaco is proposing merely a test well to determine whether there is a substantial enough supply of either gas or oil for the company to run a full-blown drilling operation.

Laurence H. Gary, a retired Texaco Oil Co. official and active church member, died Sunday of dementia at Vantage House in Columbia. He was 90. Born and raised in Baltimore, Mr. Gary was a 1935 graduate of Polytechnic Institute. He earned a law degree from the University of Baltimore in 1939. In 1937, he joined the Naval Reserve. During World War II, he served as an engineering officer and executive officer in the Pacific. His decorations included the Philippine Liberation Medal with two Bronze Stars.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Texaco Inc. told its employees #F yesterday that it will delay indefinitely moving its London offices to Olympia & York Development Ltd.'s troubled Canary Wharf project.Texaco said it decided to postpone the move because of questions surrounding Canary Wharf's future. The project and its developer, Olympia & York Developments Ltd. of Toronto, are operating under bankruptcy protection.The oil company's Texaco Ltd. subsidiary had planned to move all 1,000 employees at its headquarters in the London suburb of Knightsbridge to Canary Wharf Aug. 17, said Sandy Walkington, a Texaco spokesman in New York.

What do you think will happen with my shares of Chevron Corp.? - C.C., via the Internet The second-largest U.S. oil company, created by the 2001 merger of Chevron and Texaco, is expected to continue its long track record of using strong cash flow to reward shareholders. Its financial results are directly affected by the price of crude oil, which has provided a dramatic boost over the past two years, and its ability to expand international exploration and production. The company operates in oil and gas in more than 180 countries.

Texaco's right to drill for natural gas or oil in Southern Maryland was upheld today by an Anne Arundel County court, which dismissed environmentalists' objections.Circuit Court Judge Warren B. Duckett ruled that the Maryland Department of Natural Resources acted properly in issuing Texaco a permit in December to drill a 10,000-foot deep exploratory well near Faulkner in Charles County.

Right away, the NAACP should toss rose petals at those morons from Texaco. Kweisi Mfume knows this. Texaco is publicly chastened by revelations of bigotry, and the language of the gutter, and does penance with $176.1 million in settlement while hoping nobody organizes any boycotts. But the money is minor stuff, and every civil rights group in America should chip in and throw testimonials to Texaco.What's important isn't the millions so much as the unlocking of a door previously closed, the shining of light on previously dark corners of the American corporate psyche.

WASHINGTON -- ''Share the fantasy,'' a memorable perfume ad used to invite. I would like to invite you, dear reader, to share a fantasy, Texaco's commitment to equal opportunity.''Our commitment to diversity is an inclusive process, grounded in our core value of respect for the individual and in our long-standing policies of equal opportunity for all employees,'' says the company's annual report for 1995.Good words. But, now that you have heard the dream, share the reality, as recorded secretly by a participant in an all-white, all-male August, 1994, meeting of top Texaco executives discussing a discrimination lawsuit filed by black middle-managers.

FAULKNER -- It's been more than a century since John Wilkes Booth and David Herold hid out in a meadow near here as they fled south after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.And if you can blot out the telecommunications tower and the occasional brick rambler among the old, frame houses in the farm fields, it doesn't take much to imagine how it must have looked back in 1865.But all that could change rapidly if Texaco Inc. finds natural gas or oil 10,000 feet below the surface of a soybean field about a half-mile off U.S. 301 and 1 1/2 miles from the Potomac River.

Texaco's search for natural gas or oil in the Chesapeake Bay region came under challenge on two fronts yesterday, as opponents argued that it could wreak environmental havoc in the already stressed estuary.The Chesapeake Bay Foundation announced at an Annapolis news conference that it is appealing last month's decision by the Maryland Department of Natural Resources to issue Texaco Inc. a permit to drill an exploratory well near Faulkner in Charles County.Rep. Tom McMillen, D-4th, used the same occasion to say he plans to introduce a bill to prohibit extraction of oil in the Chesapeake region.

Texaco Corp. announced yesterday that it would sell about half its 600 producing fields in the United States and cut 2,500 jobs as part of a broad move to reduce costs.The cutbacks, among the largest in U.S. oil operations, come after a two-year cost-cutting effort that shrank Texaco's work force by 13 percent, to 32,000 people.The jobs that will be affected are in the company's U.S. production and refining operations. The company, based in White Plains, N.Y., said the moves would result in a charge of $165 million in the second quarter.

ChevronTexaco Inc. said yesterday that it will buy Unocal Corp. for $16.4 billion, in a deal that industry analysts said is proof that buying oil is cheaper than discovering it. ChevronTexaco, the nation's second-largest oil company after Exxon Mobil Corp., has had limited success in finding new oil reserves in recent years. Analysts said the company's reserves - the petroleum it can count on producing in the future - were weak in comparison with those of other major players. "In one fell swoop, they reversed that trend," said Lysle Brinker, senior vice president of the oil research firm John S. Herold Inc. "What Unocal brings to the table is a lot of U.S. reserves and areas in Asia where the outlook for growth is quite favorable."

The Chevron Corp. agreed yesterday to acquire Texaco Inc. for about $36 billion, creating the world's fourth-largest oil concern. The companies' boards approved the deal, which is expected to be announced today, executives close to the transaction said. It comes during a period of high oil and gas prices and much political jostling in the United States and abroad to keep those prices in check. The acquisition will likely come under intense scrutiny by regulators, who could force the combined company to divest certain assets, especially in states like California where the company would dominate the retail gas station business.

NEW YORK - Chevron Corp., the third-largest oil company in the United States, is close to an agreement to acquire Texaco Inc. for about $36 billion in stock plus the assumption of debt, according to executives close to the negotiations. Both boards are planning to meet over the weekend, and an announcement of the deal, which would create the fourth-largest oil concern in the world, could be made as early as Monday, the executives said. The deal would be the latest in a series of oil mergers that have created a new breed of "super-major" oil companies, which now include Exxon Mobil Corp.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Texaco Inc., faced with continuing low oil prices, said yesterday that it will cut 1,000 oil-exploration jobs as part of an effort to save $200 million in annual costs.The third-biggest U.S. oil company said the job cuts, equal to about 5 percent of its total work force, will be completed by March. Texaco will shed 750 U.S. jobs and 250 abroad, primarily in Britain, said Chris Gidez, company spokesman. Texaco also said it will reorganize its oil-exploration division effective Jan. 1.Forecasts are that oil prices will remain low next year.

WHITE PLAINS, N.Y. -- Although Texaco turned over 43,000 pages of documents to black employees who were suing for race discrimination, it withheld crucial items, a lawyer testified yesterday in the government's case against retired Texaco treasurer Robert Ulrich and former personnel executive Richard Lundwall."

NEW YORK -- A former Texaco Inc. treasurer was indicted yesterday on charges that he ordered the shredding of documents that were crucial to an employee race-discrimination lawsuit the oil company settled for $176 million.Retired Treasurer Robert Ulrich, the former top finance department executive, was charged with trying to sabotage the black workers' case by conspiring with a subordinate to shred and throw away internal documents the workers' lawyers demanded. He also was accused of concealing the documents from Texaco's legal department.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume yesterday called for federal investigations of Texaco executives' behavior at tape-recorded 1994 meetings at which they made "outrageous and scurrilous" racist remarks and allegedly discussed destroying minority-hiring documents.Mfume said in a statement from NAACP headquarters in Baltimore that he has asked U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno and FBI Director Louis Freeh to investigate whether criminal or civil rights violations occurred.The leader of the nation's largest civil rights group also said he would meet soon with Texaco Chairman Peter I. Bijur, who has publicly apologized for the company, to discuss the organization's concerns.

State officials have decided to let petroleum giant Texaco Inc. drill an exploratory well in Southern Maryland, but environmentalists vow to fight it as a potential threat to Chesapeake Bay.At a news conference in Annapolis today, Department of Natural Resources officials announced approval of a permit to Texaco.The permit allows Texaco to drill 10,000 feet deep in a farm field near Faulkner in Charles County, where oil company officials say they expect to find natural gas rather than oil -- if they find anything at all.The company is drilling a similar exploratory well across the Potomac River in Westmoreland County, Va., according to DNR officials.

It seems a daunting, potentially wrenching task: sending every one of 29,000 employees through a perception-altering "learning experience" to get them to think about how they view race, gender and culture.But that's exactly what Texaco Inc., which last year settled a race discrimination lawsuit after being embarrassed by remarks made about black employees by company executives, is doing. And to conduct the huge program in the next year-and-a-half, the oil giant has hired dozens of independent consultants to travel from coast to coast to lead groups of 20 in role-playing exercises and discussions.

Eddie Brown was wrapping up a phone call when a colleague rushed into his office."I just got off the phone with a Fortune 50 company, and they would like to come in Monday. Guess who?" Keith A. Lee asked."Narrow it down geographically," said Brown, president of Brown Capital Management Inc., a Baltimore-based money-management firm."Northeast.""Texaco!" Brown answered instantly.Lee, a portfolio manager with the firm, took the phone call on Thursday afternoon, Nov. 14, 10 days after the White Plains, N.Y., oil giant was swept up in a firestorm involving alleged racism.