Chevron Corporation and Texaco Inc. today announced a merger that will create a company -- ChevronTexaco Corporation – the world’s 4th largest oil company. The transaction is estimated to be worth $35.1 billion.

In the merger, Texaco shareholders will receive .77 shares of Chevron common stock for each share of Texaco common stock they own, and Chevron shareholders will retain their existing shares.
According to The Wall Street Journal newspaper, the deal is likely to face antitrust scrutiny, because of both Chevron’s and Texaco’s hefty share of refineries and filling stations along the West Coast.
The two sides have been talking for more than a year, but were unable to come together earlier due to a variety of disagreements.
Dave O'Reilly, Chevron chairman and chief executive officer, will serve as chairman and CEO of ChevronTexaco, which will be headquartered in San Francisco. Peter Bijur, Texaco chairman and CEO, will become a vice chairman of the combined company with responsibility for downstream, power and chemicals operations.
The composition of the ChevronTexaco Board of Directors will be approximately proportional to the equity split and will be drawn from current members of the Chevron and Texaco boards. Chevron Vice President and Chief Financial Officer John Watson and Texaco Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer Patrick Lynch will lead the integration process.
The combined company expects to achieve annual savings of at least $1.2 billion within six to nine months of the merger's completion.
The merger is conditioned, among other things, on shareholder approval for both companies, pooling accounting treatment for the merger and regulatory approvals of government agencies such as the U.S. Federal Trade Commission. Chevron and Texaco anticipate that the FTC will require certain divestitures in the U.S. downstream in order to address market concentration issues, and the companies intend to cooperate with the FTC in this process. In that regard, Texaco is in discussions with its partners in the U.S. downstream.