#95. Chevron: The Future Is Lower Carbon Energy

by Tammy Klein (Transport Energy Strategies) Chevron believes the future of energy needs to be lower carbon, reliable and affordable. The company is taking a “portfolio approach” to carbon intensity reduction, investing in an array of different technologies to meet its carbon reduction targets. One of those technologies we discuss in this episode is Chevron’s partnership with Toyota and its recent road trip across the Southeast U.S. to test its new renewable gasoline formulation. Learn more about the road trip, how consumers and policymakers responded, and about what Chevron is planning for the future.

With Special Guest:

Kaustav Sinha is director of strategic partnerships. He is responsible for leading a global team across multiple Chevron business units to develop Chevron’s enterprise automotive OEM strategy and shape the potential for commercial, technology and advocacy partnerships with strategic OEM partners, with a focus on lower carbon solutions.

Prior to his current role, Kaustav was Manager, Global Strategic Account responsible for managing people, P&L, strategy, business development and operations of one of Chevron Oronite’s largest ustomer portfolios. He also led Chevron Oronite’s North American sales organization where he and his team played a key role in growing the regional business and developed a growth portfolio with multimillion-dollar opportunity pipeline. Previous assignments included global product segment management here he led one of Chevron Oronite’s key automotive growth projects from early development phase through commercialization. He has actively participated in several industry advocacy positions where he worked closely with various industry groups, energy companies and OEMs to develop new specifications and build strategic partnerships.

Prior to joining Chevron, he worked at Dow Chemical, Infineum (an ExxonMobil & Shell JV) and Ford Research in various technology, strategy, R&D and product development roles. He has over 15 years of technical, commercial and people management experience with focus on building and scaling new products, businesses, and teams in the energy/chemicals industry. He regularly engages in various diversity, inclusion and mentoring initiatives and is currently on the enterprise leadership team of Chevron’s elevate program (an inhouse diversity and inclusive initiative supported by Chevron’s CDIO).

He received his PhD in Materials Science and Engineering from the University of Nevada Reno and an MBA from the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business. READ MORE/LISTEN; includes transcript

Excerpt from transcript: The feedback from the demo was exhilarating, I would say, in lack of a better word. The one-week road trip started from Canton, Mississippi and covered one thousand miles across the US Gulf Coast making stops at Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Houston, and Plano, Texas engaging various stakeholders from the local communities.
(09:33):
Three different Toyota in-production vehicles, Rav4, Camry and Tundra that some of you guys saw in pictures, powered by hybrid powertrain technologies were used for this road trip. The goal of this demo, when we were discussing with Toyota, was to create awareness around renewable gasoline blends. And this is not the first and the only demo. There'll be subsequent activities to make sure that we help people understand this pathway to decarbonization. The demo captured something in the public imagination too. We had some glowing media coverage
on the trip because journalists and the public are deeply interested in reducing carbon intensity from today's technology. There are some stereotypes that battery electric vehicles are expensive and can be only afforded by a certain segment of society. Hopefully, that will change. but right now most car buyers are still buying combustion engines, and that's a fact.

Kaustav Sinha (10:31):
But those cars will be in service, as I said before, for 10, 15 or even 20 years. So what do we do in the interim to cut the carbon intensity? We cannot wait. So how do we avoid leaving different segments? How do we bring everybody together in reducing the carbon density of these vehicles right now? and so we thought about renewable gasoline blend, put that together, and then finally we believe that the renewable gasoline blend can help answer not only for many Americans but also many drivers around the world who are driving and buying these combustion engines.

, Chevron recently developed several formulations of renewable gasoline blends based on the technical advances that we have seen in the industry, and we put together.

So we are producing the fuels in limited quantities for testing and demonstration purposes, having proven the carbon reduction potential renewable gasoline blend, our focus is now on securing the policy enablement. READ MORE