- Chevron CEO Mike Wirth said Paramount's show Landman, about the oil industry in Texas, is great entertainment and called series star Billy Bob Thornton an amazing actor. While some parts are accurate, others are "probably just a touch exaggerated," he said.
If there's anyone who knows how the oil industry works, it's Mike Wirth, who is CEO of Fortune 500 company Chevron—the second-largest U.S. energy company by market cap.
During an interview on the Bloomberg Talks podcast on Thursday, Wirth confirmed he has seen the hit Paramount+ show Landman and was asked how accurately it portrays the industry, namely if he has to deal with drug cartels on a daily basis.
"It is wonderful entertainment," Wirth replied diplomatically. "Billy Bob Thornton is an amazing actor. And it’s drama, right? And then you need a little bit of a story line. And so, you know, there's certain aspects of it that are that are accurate and others that are probably just a touch exaggerated."
Paramount describes Landman, which is based on the podcast Boomtown, as "a modern tale of fortune seeking amongst roughnecks and billionaires in the world of oil" set in West Texas.
Thornton stars as a so-called landman. The American Association of Professional Landmen, which has its own podcast devoted to the show, describes a landman as someone who negotiates with landowners to acquire leases for the exploration and development of energy sources.
When asked on Bloomberg Talks if the popularity of the show signals a shift in tone toward the oil industry and a more pragmatic approach, Wirth agreed.
"Take a look at this administration that has come in," he said. "And rather than criticizing and and almost in some ways ostracizing oil and gas, it's an administration that has talked about American energy abundance and using that to the benefit of the American economy, the competitiveness of American business."
Meanwhile, Chevron continues to see more crude being pumped from the Permian Basin, the heart of the U.S. oil patch that spans West Texas and parts of New Mexico.
In an earnings call with analysts last week after reporting fourth-quarter results, Wirth said Chevron's Permian production jumped 18% last year and is expected to climb 9% to 10% this year.
That's despite the company slowing capital spending as new technologies and drilling techniques make extraction more efficient.
"So we'll have an asset that will produce something over 1 million barrels a day for many, many years into the future," Wirth said.
For its part, Fortune 500 rival Exxon Mobil said last week it expects its Permian production to jump to 2.3 million oil-equivalent barrels per day in 2030 from 1.5 million in 2024.
