David O’Reilly, CEO of San Ramon-based Chevron, rode a third year of record profits (achieved on the backs of strapped motorists) to compensation totaling $31.6 millon for 2006, according to SEC filings this week. The next four top-paid officers walked off with $34 million.
The company touted its $65.6 million in fat-cat rewards Monday as motorists reeled under gasoline prices hitting more than $3.15 for a gallon of regular in California long before the usual summer driving price peak. Indirect data mined by David Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle show refinery profits in the state, where Chevron owns nearly a quarter of refining capacity, hitting $39 a barrel, more than twice the 5-year average of $17.
Chevron, like its CEO, is making stratospheric profits again this year. It’s not the result of luck, or of genius leadership. In California, Chevron and others have deliberately restricted refinery capacity so that even routine maintenance causes a price spike. More galling yet, Chevron told the L.A. Times last week that it would expand production at refineries in Mississippi, Britain and India, while in its refinery-strapped home state, a minor boost is “under review,” depending in part on whether it would “maximize long-term returns.”
Californians can’t stand any more maximizing, either in Chevron’s executive salaries or its profits. Too bad the state has a governor who’s taken nearly $3.2 million from the oil industry, and a Legislature cowed by Big Oil’s lobbyists.