Colombia

Chevron is continuing its long history in Colombia by searching for new resources while also providing finished products throughout the country.

Chevron is among Colombia’s leading suppliers of fuel and lubricants, through our subsidiary Chevron Petroleum Company. We produce lubricants, coolants and greases locally and market them under the Chevron® brand. We also operate a network of Texaco® service stations and are a major supplier at the Bogotá and San Andrés airports.

As an active member of the community, we support programs related to economic development, education and health.

As a result of Chevron’s acquisition of Noble Energy in October 2020, two exploration plays in Colombia were added to Chevron’s portfolio.

Chevron has a 40 percent-owned and operated working interest in Colombia-3 and Guajira Offshore-3 blocks located off Barranquilla and Santa Marta’s shores, covering more than 800,000 net acres (3,237 sq km). Exploration activities continued in 2020.

In April 2020, the company completed the sale of its interests in the offshore Chuchupa and onshore Ballena natural gas fields.

Chevron Petroleum Company operates a nationwide network of nearly 460 Texaco® service stations. We have a 12 percent market share in automotive fuels, a 24 percent market share in aviation fuel and a 17 percent market share in lubricants. Chevron also has interests in 10 fuel terminals in Colombia, 4 owned and 6 joint operated.

Under the Texaco name, the company sells a full line of branded products – including Texaco with Techron® gasoline and Techron D diesel fuel – through stations, sales agents and distributors in Colombia. Chevron markets lubricants, coolants and greases under Havoline®, Ursa®, Delo®, Techron® and other brands for consumer, commercial and industrial use.

We are the only fuel distributor in the island territories of San Andrés and Providencia.

Chevron aims to strengthen local communities through programs that deliver measurable and sustainable results. We focus on three core areas: economic development, education and health. Through a diversified portfolio of programs, we strive to help improve the quality of life in the communities where we operate.

Chevron partners with local organizations to support initiatives that build capacity and encourage self-sufficiency.

Weaving prosperity
Chevron promotes entrepreneurship while preserving the cultural heritage of communities. The Wayúu indigenous community is known for a distinctive weaving technique used to make bags and other craft products. In workshops we support, participants from 30 communities of La Guajira are taught production techniques and marketing skills to boost sales, enabling them to increase their household income. Originally designed for 50 women, the program has grown to 500 women and 100 men.

Tourism promotion
Since 2011, Chevron has sponsored start-up tourism initiatives in La Guajira, supporting more than 90 entrepreneurs with small businesses such as handcrafts, fashion, lodging, food services and tourism. Thanks to the Tourism Startup Alliance, these companies have created more than 120 direct and 300 indirect job opportunities since 2016.

Catering supplier initiative
We collaborate with our food services contractor Compass Group and the nongovernmental organization VITAL to help small-scale farmers meet Compass’ high standards. As a result, many of these farmers now sell their products to Compass, and Chevron employees enjoy locally grown food served at our facilities. More important, the farmers benefit from the reliable demand and fair pricing that Compass offers. So far, more than 90 farmers have taken part in the program.

We cultivate programs that foster a brighter future for local communities in Colombia.

From kindergarten to internship
Chevron supports educational initiatives in La Guajira for Wayúu community members who live in remote areas and lack access to education. These initiatives focus on early childhood and continue through high school, some offering internships designed to inspire career paths. For example, we partner with the Colombian Institute for Family Welfare to support programs for nearly 600 preschoolers.

Chevron has also worked with partners to build the Laachon Ethnic Education Center, which serves 2,600 children from indigenous communities in rural areas of the Manaure municipality. The center is a boarding school that educates children from distant homes. We support teacher-training programs that have helped more than 500 students improve their national test scores. And over the last 10 years, we have provided more than 80 university scholarships to high school graduates in La Guajira. Currently, 40 students attend universities on scholarships funded by Chevron.

Chevron supports health care programs in the communities where we operate.

Improving health for indigenous populations
In 2014, Chevron and the Baylor College of Medicine Pediatric AIDS Initiative at Texas Children’s Hospital partnered to launch a $1.5 million, five-year maternal and child health care program called SAIL (Salud y Autosuficiencia Indígena en La Guajira). The program provides care for expectant mothers and young children with the goal of reducing malnutrition and reversing high morbidity and mortality rates, which in La Guajira are three times higher than the national average. The program also includes training for local health workers.

In 2015, we collaborated with a broad spectrum of entities to fight hunger. Partners included the Colombian government and local health institutions as well as local and international academic and development partners. Thirteen training sessions were held for local health professionals and doctors, and health assessments were given to people living in 172 communities. More than 700 malnourished children in the Wayúu indigenous communities of Riohacha and Manaure were identified and treated. With the support of the Exito Foundation, a major Colombian nongovernmental organization, emergency food supplies were provided to nearly 500 Wayúu families.

Chevron employees from Bogotá and Riohacha joined efforts in 2016 to fund an emergency nutrition assistance program for indigenous Wayúu community members facing deficiencies in the northern Colombian province of La Guajira, near the company’s operations. Some employees donated the equivalent of one day’s salary. The employees’ efforts raised nearly $20,000, to which Chevron added $17,000 from its local social investment budget, enough to secure nearly 10 tons of emergency food aid.

Enabling water access
Intense summers and severe water shortages in La Guajira make access to water challenging. In 2005, Chevron began developing projects to expand access to water sources in remote and isolated Wayúu communities. To date, the company has installed 11 water wells near our natural gas production facilities for the benefit of community members living nearby.

Helping families through Operation Smile
Chevron Colombia and Operation Smile Foundation have partnered for 17 years to provide free surgeries for children in La Guajira suffering with cleft lip and palate conditions. With the aim of improving their welfare as well as their social and family integration, more than 52 patients have undergone successful operations each year.

Chevron’s partnership with the Colombian people has deep roots.

The company began exploring for oil in Colombia in the late 1920s and made crude oil and natural gas discoveries during the 1960s and 1970s. The oil fields were sold during the 1990s. Two additional oil fields, in the Llanos Basin, were turned over to Ecopetrol in 2000.

Chevron began marketing products in Colombia in the 1930s. Texaco, which later merged with Chevron, entered the Colombian market in 1958, building service stations, fuel terminals, warehouses and offices in Colombia’s major cities. In the mid-1960s, the company constructed a lubricant-oil blending plant and a compounding grease unit in Bogotá.

In 1972, Chevron discovered gas in La Guajira, drilling the first well in 1975. The Ballena onshore field began gas production in 1977, and the Chuchupa offshore field began production in 1979.

In 1988, Chevron opened a plastic container manufacturing plant in Bogotá.

In 2007, Chevron began offering fuels containing the Techron® additive to Colombian drivers.

In 2016, Chevron launched Techron D, for diesel vehicles.

In 2017, Chevron celebrated 40 years of natural gas production in Colombia.

Protecting people and the environment is a top priority. Our Downstream and Upstream operations have been recognized for our environmental performance.

Chevron sponsors special environmental projects, such as the construction of artificial reefs, near some of our operations in Colombia.

We were named one of the most socially responsible companies in Colombia at the 2014 Environmental Responsibility Awards, an event sponsored by the Fundación Siembra, and we received the Gold Medal for Environmental Responsibility in Research and Conservation for promoting economic and social development of the Wayúu communities near our facilities in La Guajira province.

Between 2012 and 2016, we planted more than 2,000 trees in nature reserves in Colombia.

Chevron has installed solar panels in schools, cultural centers and health centers and has supplied rechargeable solar lamps to the indigenous Wayúu community.

The British & Colombian Chamber of Commerce has ranked Chevron among the top 30 most responsible companies in Colombia. The U.N. Development Programme, along with the Colombian Hydrocarbon Agency, identified Chevron’s social and environmental efforts as being among the seven best practices implemented in Colombia by an oil company.

Employees and contractors in our Upstream operations have received awards for outstanding safety performance. In 2010, 2012 and 2014, the private insurance company ARP Bolívar recognized Chevron for measures we implemented to make our workplace safer.

In 2016, our SAIL health care program received the Colombian National Nutrition Award from the Exito Foundation.

chevron colombia

Exploration and Production

General inquiries:
Telephone: +57.1.805.0391

Media Inquiries:
Ray Fohr
Twitter: @RayFohrChevron
Email: media relations

Marketing and Retail

Calle 100, 19A-30
Bogotá, Colombia
Telephone: +57.1.639.4444

Careers: Working at Chevron in Colombia

Cautionary Statement

For the latest figures, view the 2023 Supplement to the Annual Report.