⁍ CEO Michael Wirth’s pivot away from home is underpinned by a bet that the Middle East is entering an era of reconciliation.

---

⁍ The new strategy is seeing the company pitch new gas deals in Egypt, Israel, Qatar, while cutting spending on American shale exploration.

---

– Chevron is making a major play for natural gas in the Middle East, and the company’s CEO thinks the region is poised to become a major source of the fuel. “Five years ago the Eastern Med wasn’t viewed as endowed from a resource standpoint, as I think most people would say today,” Michael Wirth tells Reuters. “That’s a fundamental shift. Middle Eastern commercial and diplomatic relations ‘are becoming more codified and stronger, that’s a trend that we think augurs well for the region.'” Chevron is paying $11.8 billion for Noble Energy’s 40% stake in the Leviathan gas field off the coast of Israel, reports the Wall Street Journal. Leviathan is “one of the largest natural-gas fields in the world,” notes the Journal, and Chevron says it has the potential to produce up to 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas a day. The deal is part of Chevron’s new strategy to shift its focus away from the US and toward the Middle East, where analysts believe demand for natural gas will outstrip oil in the coming years, reports the New York Times. Chevron—which recently overtook ExxonMobil as the largest US oil company by market value—is also looking to expand in Qatar, Egypt, and Iraq.