Texaco

Six Maryland and Virginia congressmen today urged Texaco Inc. to halt its search for natural gas or oil in the Chesapeake Bay region, saying it poses unacceptable environmental risks to the estuary.The House members, organized by Maryland's Rep. Tom McMillen, D-4th, wrote A.C. DeCrane Jr., Texaco's chairman, asking him to "seriously consider" withdrawing the company's applications to drill in Southern Maryland and at three sites in Virginia."The discovery and subsequent recovery of oil could have irreversible and irreparable effects on the health of the Chesapeake," the letter said.

Texaco's search for natural gas or oil in the Chesapeake Bay region came under challenge on two fronts today, 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 says he plans to introduce a bill to prohibit extraction of oil in the Chesapeake region.

WASHINGTON -- The federal tax collector lost a billion-dollar fight with Texaco Inc. yesterday as the Supreme Court refused to look into the profits the company made on global sales of Saudi Arabian crude oil.The court's action could also be good news for Exxon Corp., which has an identical tax case pending in a lower court.The Internal Revenue Service contended in its unsuccessful appeal that the dispute was not just about the Saudi crude sales, but about the ability of multinational companies to insulate major portions of their international profits from U.S. taxes.

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.

Texaco Inc.'s bid to drill for gas or oil in Southern Maryland is nearing its final hurdle, though environmentalists still warn that the state should not open the door to energy exploration anywhere near Chesapeake Bay.The oil company's application for a permit to sink a 10,000-foot exploratory well near Faulkner in Charles County is "reasonably complete," said C. Edmon Larrimore, chief of minerals, oil and gas for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources.A...

The former Texaco executive who recorded senior company officers belittling minority groups and planning the destruction of documents that had been demanded in a discrimination lawsuit was charged yesterday with obstruction of justice.The charge is the sharpest turnaround yet in the fortunes of the executive, Richard A. Lundwall, who until August was an executive in Texaco Inc.'s finance department.It was Lundwall who, after he was forced out of Texaco, turned the tape recordings over to plaintiffs' lawyers in the discrimination suit.

WASHINGTON -- Texaco Inc. announced yesterday a sweeping plan to open doors for minorities and women, winning praise from civil rights leaders.The Rev. Jesse L. Jackson called off a consumer boycott of Texaco, and NAACP President Kweisi Mfume shelved a threatened stock divestiture campaign.Texaco pledged to boost minority employment, reward managers for achieving workplace diversity, triple the number of blacks who own retail outlets and increase purchasing from businesses owned by minorities and women.

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.

WASHINGTON -- I tip my cap today to Peter I. Bijur, the chairman of Texaco Inc., for the straightforward way in which he is extricating that company from what could have become a social-legal disaster.Texaco has been the symbol of racial bigotry in corporate America ever since it was revealed that some of its executives sat in corporate offices denigrating blacks and other minorities and plotting how to destroy company documents that might enable black employees to win a lawsuit in which they accused Texaco of egregious discrimination.