Ann: AGM Presentation, page-30

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SYDNEY—With global supply chains gumming up due to the Covid-19 pandemic, Chevron Corp. feared a lack of parts could cause a costly delay to planned maintenance at its $54 billion Gorgon gas-export project in Australia.

So executives hit upon a backup plan. Chevron asked a local firm called AdditiveNow to demonstrate whether the same parts could be made using 3-D printing technology.

The imported components did arrive at Gorgon in time, but Chevron was so impressed with the manufacturing specifications produced by AdditiveNow that it acquired the intellectual property for use on future projects, accelerating its 3-D printing research-and-development efforts by a year.

“We’ve learned a lot from those parts. The most important thing is that we’ve shown that this flexible, right part, right time digital supply-chain approach can be successful, and it can meet our needs in a sort of reactive mode,” said Chevron manager Robert Rettew, whose materials R&D portfolio includes 3-D printing.

The pandemic is giving 3-D printing, also known as additive manufacturing, a shot in the arm.

Factors including extensive congestion at ports and other transportation nodes have slowed delivery of goods just as companies try to meet demand unleashed by economies reopening.

A stainless steel pipe spacer that was made by AdditiveNow for Chevron using 3-D printing technology.

For commodities industries, one missing part can be costly if it forces operations offline. An estimate by Energy and Industrial Advisory Partners LLC puts the average cost of unplanned downtime for Gulf of Mexico oil and gas operators at about $20 million annually, rising to $50 million for larger operators.

Italian polymer printer Roboze Inc. opened an office in Houston shortly before the pandemic hit. It has since doubled its staff to about 100 globally as it tries to keep pace with demand for 3-D products from oil-and-gas companies.

“Because of supply chain disruptions, we have significantly been growing in the order of a few folds,” said Arash Shadravan, Roboze’s energy-business development manager. Mr. Shadravan said Roboze, which co-chairs an American Petroleum Institute committee working to set industrywide 3-D printing standards, has worked with the world’s five largest oil and gas operators.

Issues including cost and print speeds have constrained the 3-D printing industry, but a rise in global shipping costs and new techniques are making the technology more attractive.

Freight costs have leveled off from recent peaks but remain elevated amid port congestion and shipping shortages.

The Los Angeles and Long Beach ports, which together move a quarter of all American imports, have begun operating around the clock to clear a backlog of dozens of ships waiting up to three weeks to dock.

“Companies who may have tentatively taken their first steps last year are now starting to mature their interest,” said Matthew Waterhouse, chief executive of 3-D printing firm 3D Metalforge Ltd.

Earlier this year, the Australia-listed company installed a facility at the Port of Singapore, the world’s largest container transshipment hub.Mr. Waterhouse said some customers also see 3-D Printing as a way to eliminate large inventories of parts, which can be expensive to store and often become obsolete before they get used because of minimum order sizes imposed by traditional suppliers.