Texaco has no plans to offload its Irish operations, the chairman and chief executive of parent company Chevron said yesterday.

"We have no plans to sell," said David O'Reilly. "That does not mean we are going to run our business here in exactly the same way year in, year out. Nobody runs their business in the same way. They keep adapting, upgrading and modernising which is what we are doing."

Mr O'Reilly, who was in Ireland to address the Dublin Chamber of Commerce annual dinner, described the recent Government Green Paper on energy as a good starting point in the debate on national energy policy, but warned against striving for energy independence as a way to achieve security of supply.

"Policies focused on independence are counterproductive. They create demand uncertainty and discourage producing countries from making the investments needed to supply the markets," he said.

Negotiating bilateral agreements with producing countries has many risks, he said, adding that energy policy needs to be addressed through international co-operation and multilateral agreements.

Oil will form part of energy policies well into the future and the era of peak oil is a long way off despite some of the more pessimistic views, said Mr O'Reilly.

"I don't think we are close to peak oil. There are plenty of hydrocarbons out there. It is a case of getting access to them."

Most oil reserves are either controlled by governments or are in challenging geophysical locations, he said. But the perception that doing business in some countries, such as Russia, is too risky is false, he added.

"Russia has a risk but everywhere we do business has a risk whether it is geopolitical, technical, geophysical or economic."

Stable states also offer risks, he said, citing the UK's move to increase taxes on oil producers.

"Economically, we have been hurt more in the UK than any other country this year," he said.

Although oil prices have come down from all-time highs, he said prices will remain higher than they were in the 1990s.

The task facing the industry is to develop new sources of oil. Chevron spends nearly €1.5 billion on exploration alone, he said.

It recently tested a well on the Gulf of Mexico in about 7,000 feet of water and more than 20,000 feet under the sea floor.

Chevron is also at the forefront of finding new sources of energy and is the biggest producer of renewables among oil companies, he said.

"But renewables will still be less than 15 per cent of energy supply in 2025."

Oil companies should not be penalised for global warming, Mr O'Reilly said.

"Our role is to provide energy in a way that society demands."