HOUSTON/SAN FRANCISCO, Dec 9 (Reuters) – Chevron Corp
(CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the second-largest U.S. oil company, will increase
spending by a fifth to $26 billion in 2011, with 85 percent
going to exploration and production as the industry seeks out
new sources of growth.

The expanded budget, announced on Thursday, is a big step
for Chevron as it enters a period of weak net production growth
while it ramps up in natural gas. Massive rival Exxon Mobil
Corp (XOM.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) budgeted 2010 spending of $30 billion.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Equity analysts have been showering love on Baker Hughes Inc (BHI.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world’s No. 3 oilfield services provider, but some top hedge funds are still afraid the stock might take a bath.

Wary of a U.S. drilling slowdown and tired of waiting for Baker’s restructuring to pay off, some of the savviest hedge fund managers, including Andreas Halvorsen of Viking Global Investors and Eric Mindich of Eton Park Capital, dumped their entire stakes in Baker during the third quarter.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Life’s looking good for techies in the oil patch.

Along with offshore upgrades to meet a U.S. regulatory crackdown, budgetary purse strings have loosened as their employers, cued by higher oil prices, ramp up efforts to tap challenging new resources.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 11 (Reuters) – Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz)
expects the natural gas production of its pending acquisition
Atlas Energy (ATLS.O: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) to increase more than seven times current
output, to the equivalent of 100,000 barrels of oil per day.

Chief Executive John Watson, who did not give a timeline
for the increased production from Atlas’s Marcellus shale gas
properties in western Pennsylvania, said his company had passed
up on several shale investment opportunities over the past few
years because they did not make sense financially. Chevron is
paying $3.2 billion for Atlas.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Halliburton Co (HAL.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the world’s second-largest oilfield services company, plans to increase capital spending next year by about a fifth at least, as it targets new opportunities outside its core U.S. market.

Chief Financial Officer Mark McCollum credits Halliburton’s steady investment through the 2009 downturn as one reason for its recent outperformance over rivals, and said he expects 2011 capital expenditure of between $2.5 billion and $3 billion.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Fluor Corp (FLR.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), the largest publicly traded U.S. engineering company, posted a bigger-than-expected quarterly loss and said its chief executive would leave in February after nine years in the job.

The company also said it would more than double the size of its share buyback program, and it reported revenue that topped expectations as well as further growth in its backlog of work.

TAFT, California (Reuters) – Drive too fast through the dusty, rolling hills of California’s oil country and you could easily miss the site of the largest oil spill in U.S. history.

A plaque, and a bulletin board with 10 printed pages that tell the story, are all that mark the location of the Lakeview gusher. It spewed out 9 million barrels of oil a century before BP’s disaster severely altered the views of many people about the always risky business of drilling for oil.

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov 3 (Reuters) – Transocean Ltd (RIG.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz),
the contractor that lost its rig in BP’s well blowout in April,
reported a worse-than-expected profit, hurt by the costs of the
disaster and the resulting curbs on U.S. offshore drilling.

It expects 2011 revenue to be “slightly higher” than 2010,
compared with 6 percent growth seen by analysts, due to greater
activity with newly built rigs and the resumption of Gulf of
Mexico drilling, the company said in a filing on Wednesday.

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) – Baker Hughes Inc (BHI.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) reported a surge in quarterly profit that topped expectations, largely on growth in unconventional oil and gas drilling in North America, and its shares jumped more than 6 percent.

Yet it is markets outside North America holding the attention of analysts and executives, with the third-largest U.S.-listed oilfield services company targeting 15 percent international margins by the end of 2011, or a gain of 9 percentage points.

SAN FRANCISCO/PARIS, Oct 29 (Reuters) – Second-tier oil
majors disappointed investors by failing to match the strong
profit growth of larger peers, with Chevron Corp (CVX.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) short
of estimates and Total (TOTF.PA: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) simply matching expectations.

The impact on Chevron’s results of a weakened U.S. dollar,
which fell 7 percent against a basket of currencies in the
third quarter .DXY, was a big part of its profit shortfall.