George Keller 1923-2008
George Keller, the former Chevron chairman, who died yesterday in Palo Alto, was an archetype of the intuitive, gambling, technologically driven men who formerly made up the spine of the oil industry. It's not sentimentality to say that one of Big Oil's biggest problems is that today there are none like him at the helm of the five or six top companies.
Keller is famous for the nervy play that created Chevron -- the 1984 purchase of legendary Gulf Oil, described vividly in Daniel Yergin's The Prize. But Keller's vision didn't end there. Just three years later, he made the decision that took Chevron into the Soviet Union, and later into Kazakhstan's Tengiz oilfield, the company's biggest single oil property on the planet.
In other words, when you look at Chevron, you are looking at the house that George Keller built.
Keller was essential to the early research that produced O and G. In the late 1990s, he sat down with me for several hours in his San Francisco office (at the time I was writing for The New York Times out of the former Soviet Union, and he delivered an age-old complaint of parents of grown children everywhere -- he didn't get to talk much to his son Bill, the Times editor, he said. A few years later -- while I was writing O & G at Stanford -- I ran into Bill in downtown Palo Alto; he was in town visiting his father).
Keller told me about the double-knee replacement he just underwent; he planned on being on the tennis courts in a few months. He talked about Chevron's pioneering of Saudi Arabian oil. And he told me about the day in 1987 when he got a call from his much-trusted investment banker, Nicholas Brady, about a fellow named Jim Giffen who had an interesting concept. Keller should give Giffen a hearing, Brady said.
A few days later, Giffen -- a little-known New York promoter of business in the Soviet Union -- arrived in Keller's office. He proceeded to describe to the Chevron boss and his lieutenants how they might acquire an oilfieild in the off-limits Soviet Union -- what Ronald Reagan at the time called the Evil Empire.
Few oilmen would have trusted a fellow like Giffen, who belonged to a class of businessmen -- middlemen -- who usually earned their money by getting between oilmen and the oilfield. But Keller did. He ordered his men to go with Giffen to Moscow. And so began Chevron's sojourn into the Soviet Union.
As in the Gulf deal, if Keller hadn't had the sure instincts of a winning gambler, Chevron would not be the company it is today. Indeed, it might very well have been swallowed up in the waves of mergers that have roiled the industry since.
Keller is famous for the nervy play that created Chevron -- the 1984 purchase of legendary Gulf Oil, described vividly in Daniel Yergin's The Prize. But Keller's vision didn't end there. Just three years later, he made the decision that took Chevron into the Soviet Union, and later into Kazakhstan's Tengiz oilfield, the company's biggest single oil property on the planet.
In other words, when you look at Chevron, you are looking at the house that George Keller built.
Keller was essential to the early research that produced O and G. In the late 1990s, he sat down with me for several hours in his San Francisco office (at the time I was writing for The New York Times out of the former Soviet Union, and he delivered an age-old complaint of parents of grown children everywhere -- he didn't get to talk much to his son Bill, the Times editor, he said. A few years later -- while I was writing O & G at Stanford -- I ran into Bill in downtown Palo Alto; he was in town visiting his father).
Keller told me about the double-knee replacement he just underwent; he planned on being on the tennis courts in a few months. He talked about Chevron's pioneering of Saudi Arabian oil. And he told me about the day in 1987 when he got a call from his much-trusted investment banker, Nicholas Brady, about a fellow named Jim Giffen who had an interesting concept. Keller should give Giffen a hearing, Brady said.
A few days later, Giffen -- a little-known New York promoter of business in the Soviet Union -- arrived in Keller's office. He proceeded to describe to the Chevron boss and his lieutenants how they might acquire an oilfieild in the off-limits Soviet Union -- what Ronald Reagan at the time called the Evil Empire.
Few oilmen would have trusted a fellow like Giffen, who belonged to a class of businessmen -- middlemen -- who usually earned their money by getting between oilmen and the oilfield. But Keller did. He ordered his men to go with Giffen to Moscow. And so began Chevron's sojourn into the Soviet Union.
As in the Gulf deal, if Keller hadn't had the sure instincts of a winning gambler, Chevron would not be the company it is today. Indeed, it might very well have been swallowed up in the waves of mergers that have roiled the industry since.
Labels: big oil, chevron, Kazakhstan, keller, saudi arabia
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