Article: Chevron to take $800 million write-down to earnings to comply with accounting rule.

Chevron Corp. said its fourth-quarter earnings will be slashed by $800 million to comply with a new accounting rule and to account for some obsolete refining assets.

Chevron's after-tax charge is the largest to date among the major oil companies that have adopted Financial Accounting Standards Board Rule No. 121 (FASB 121).

FASB 121 requires companies to value properties on a field-by-field basis, rather than region by region. Under the old method, firms could pool a number of fields in a given area -- allowing them to offset underperforming properties with overperforming ones -- and thereby avoid taking a charge.

However, under the stringent new rule, ...

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