Federal regulators gave the go-ahead Friday for the merger of oil company giants Chevron and Texaco. The deal was announced last October.

In a 4-0 decision, the Federal Trade Commission gave its approval to the deal, now estimated to be worth $45 billion. The merger has already gotten the green light from European regulators and several other countries where the two have major operations. Separately, the companies have negotiated a consent decree with the attorneys general of 12 U.S. states.
The new company will be called ChevronTexaco and will trade on the New York Stock Exchange under the new ticker symbol CVX.
According to news releases put out by Texaco and Chevron, the deal calls for them to divest Texaco’s interests in the U.S. downstream joint ventures Motiva Enterprises LLC and Equilon Enterprises LLC. If Texaco is not able to complete a sale of its interest in Motiva to Shell and Saudi Refining Inc., and its interest in Equilon to Shell prior to the merger, it will place the stock of the Texaco subsidiaries in a divestiture trust, to be sold within eight months of the merger date. Texaco will extend its license of the Texaco brand to Equilon and Motiva on an exclusive basis until June 30, 2003, and on a non-exclusive basis until June 30, 2006.
Chevron and Texaco will seek approval of the merger by their respective stockholders at separate stockholder meetings scheduled for Oct. 9 in Houston.
The new company will have a combined enterprise market value of more than $100 billion, assets of $83 billion, net proved reserves of 11.5 billion barrels of oil equivalent (BOE), daily production of 2.7 million BOE and operations throughout the world. In the United States, ChevronTexaco will be the third-largest producer of oil and gas. Its Chevron, Texaco and Caltex petroleum products will be marketed in 180 countries.
In the merger, Texaco stockholders will receive .77 shares of ChevronTexaco common stock for each share of Texaco common stock they own, and Chevron stockholders will retain their existing shares.