ExxonMobil Totally Explained

Everything about Exxon Corporation totally explained

Exxon Mobil Corporation or ExxonMobil, is an American oil and gas corporation and a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company. Formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil, ExxonMobil is the world's largest company by revenue, at $404.5 billion for the fiscal year of 2007. It is also the largest publicly held corporation by market capitalization, at $501.17 billion on April 18, 2008. Exxon's reserves were 72 billion oil-equivalent barrels at the end of 2007. While it's the largest of the six oil supermajors with daily production of 4.18 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent) in 2007, ExxonMobil's daily production is still surpassed by several of the largest state-owned petroleum companies and it's only 14th in the world when ranked by held oil and gas reserves. The company has been the subject of criticism for its business practices and environmental record.

Organization

The Exxon Mobil Corporation global headquarters are located in Irving, Texas. ExxonMobil markets products around the world under the brands of Exxon, Mobil, and Esso. It also owns hundreds of smaller subsidiaries such as Imperial Oil Limited (69.6% ownership) in Canada, and SeaRiver Maritime, a petroleum shipping company.
The upstream division dominates the company's cashflow, accounting for approximately 70% of revenue. The company employs over 82,000 people worldwide, as indicated in ExxonMobil's 2006 Corporate Citizen Report, with approximately 4,000 employees in its Fairfax downstream headquarters and 27,000 people in its Houston upstream headquarters.
In 2005, ExxonMobil's stock price surged in parallel with rising oil prices, surpassing General Electric as the largest corporation in the world in terms of market capitalization. At the end of 2005, it reported record profits of US $36 billion in annual income, up 42% from the previous year (the overall annual income was an all-time record for annual income by any business, and included $10 billion in the third quarter alone, also an all-time record income for a single quarter by any business). The company and the American Petroleum Institute, the oil and chemical industry's lobbying apparatus, tried to downplay its success in order to avoid consumer criticism by putting up page-long ads in major American newspapers, such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, comparing oil industry profits to those of other large industries such as pharmaceuticals and banking. (External Link

) (External Link

)

Corporate affairs

The current Chairman of the Board and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corporation is Rex Tillerson. Tillerson assumed the top position on January 1, 2006, on the retirement of long-time chairman and CEO, Lee Raymond, who received a retirement and severance package of approximately $400 million USD, of which some were critical

Board of directors

As of January 29, 2007, the current Exxon Mobil board members are:

Michael Boskin, professor of economics, Stanford University

William W. George, professor of management practice, Harvard Business School

James R. Houghton, Chairman of the Board, Corning Incorporated

William R. Howell, Chairman Emeritus, J.C. Penney Company

Reatha Clark King, former chairman, Board of Trustees, General Mills Foundation

Philip E. Lippincott, retired Chairman of the Board, Scott Paper Company and Campbell Soup Company

Henry A. McKinnell, Jr., Chairman of the Board and CEO, Pfizer

Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman and CEO, Carlson Companies

Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO, IBM Corporation

Walter V. Shipley, retired Chairman of the Board, Chase Manhattan Corporation

J. Stephen Simon, Senior Vice President, Exxon Mobil Corporation

Rex Tillerson, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Exxon Mobil Corporation

Joint ventures and other strategic alliances

Aera Energy LLC is an E&P joint venture with Shell Oil, operating in California.

Infineum is a joint venture between ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch/Shell for manufacturing and marketing lubricant and fuel additives.

Production

ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3 percent of the world's oil and about 2 percent of the world's energy.

Revenue and profits

In 2005, ExxonMobil surpassed Wal-Mart as the world's largest publicly held corporation when measured by revenue, although Wal-Mart remained the largest by number of employees. ExxonMobil's $340 billion revenues in 2005 were a 25.5 percent increase over their 2004 revenues. ExxonMobil has committed roughly 0.4% of their profits (0.04% of total revenue) towards researching alternative energy, significantly less than other leading oil companies.
In 2006, Wal-Mart recaptured the lead with revenues of $348.7 billion against ExxonMobil's $335.1. ExxonMobil continues to lead the world in both profits ($39.5 billion in 2006) and market value ($460.43 billion).
As the cost per gallon of gasoline has continued to rise, there's criticism of the petroleum industry in general and ExxonMobil in particular, about their profitability, although their profit margin of 10% remains well under other sectors such as pharmaceuticals and banking.

Financial data

Financial Data USD millions>

Year-end	2002	2003	2004	2005	2006
Total revenue	204 506	237 054	291 252	358 955	377 635
EBITDA	26 038	41 220	51 646	70 181	79 869
Net income	11 460	21 510	25 330	36 130	39 500
Total debt	10 748	9 545	8 293	7 991	6 645

Environmental Record

ExxonMobil's environmental record has been a consistent target of critics, not only from outside organizations such as GreenPeace but also from institutional investors who disagree with its stance on global warming. Based on year 2000 data, ExxonMobil was ranked sixth on the Toxic 100 list of US corporate air polluters by Political Economy Research Institute (PERI).
Exxon has funded initiatives dedicated to environmentally friendly energy production. According to Stanford University, the corporation has plans to invest up to US$100,000,000 (over a ten year period) in that university's Global Climate and Energy Project.

Exxon Valdez oil spill

The March 24, 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill resulted in the discharge of approximately 11 million gallons of oil (240,000 barrels) into Prince William Sound, oiling 1,300 miles of the remote Alaskan coastline. The State of Alaska's Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council stated that the spill "is widely considered the number one spill worldwide in terms of damage to the environment", Exxon later removed the name "Exxon" from its tanker shipping subsidiary, which it renamed "SeaRiver Maritime." The renamed subsidiary, though wholly Exxon-controlled, has a separate corporate charter and board of directors, and the former Exxon Valdez is now the SeaRiver Mediterranean. The renamed tanker is legally owned by a small, stand-alone company, which would have minimal ability to pay out on claims in the event of a further accident.
ExxonMobil has yet to pay any of the $2.5 billion USD in punitive damages awarded to 33,000 fishermen, businesses, and affected communities as a result of the spill. Exxon had argued that it should pay no more than $25 million in punitive damages in the case, and the case is currently on appeal to the United States Supreme Court.
A study of the spill released by the US Environmental Protection Agency in September 2007 reported that the spill consists of approximately 17 to 30 million gallons of petroleum products from the mid 1800's to the mid 1900's. The largest portion of these operations were by ExxonMobil or its predecessors. By comparison, the Exxon Valdez oil spill was approximately 11 million gallons.

Funding of global warming skeptics

ExxonMobil has drawn criticism as a major funder of organizations campaigning against the scientific opinion that global warming is caused by the burning of fossil fuels, and against the Kyoto Protocol. According to Mother Jones Magazine, the company was a leading member of one of the first such skeptic groups, the Global Climate Coalition, founded in 1989. According to The Guardian, ExxonMobil has funded, among other groups skeptical of global warming, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, George C. Marshall Institute, Heartland Institute, Congress on Racial Equality, TechCentralStation.com, and International Policy Network. ExxonMobil's support for these organizations has drawn condemnation from the Royal Society, the academy of sciences of the United Kingdom. The Union of Concerned Scientists released a report in 2007 accusing ExxonMobil of spending $16 million, between 1998 and 2005, towards 43 advocacy organizations which dispute the impact of global warming. The report argued that ExxonMobil used disinformation tactics similar to those used by the tobacco industry in its denials of the link between lung cancer and smoking, saying that the company used "many of the same organizations and personnel to cloud the scientific understanding of climate change and delay action on the issue."}} In August 2006, the Wall Street Journal revealed that a YouTube video Al Gore, titled Al Gore's Penguin Army, appeared to be astroturfing by DCI Group, a Washington PR firm with ties to ExxonMobil as well as the Republican Party.
In January 2007, the company appeared to change its position, when vice president for public affairs Kenneth Cohen said "we know enough now—or, society knows enough now—that the risk is serious and action should be taken." Cohen stated that, as of 2006, ExxonMobil had ceased funding of the Competitive Enterprise Institute and "'five or six' similar groups". While the company didn't publicly state which the other similar groups were, a May 2007 report by Greenpeace does list the five groups it stopped funding as well as a list of 41 other climate skeptic groups which are still receiving ExxonMobil funds.
On February 13, 2007, ExxonMobil CEO Rex W. Tillerson acknowledged that the planet was warming while carbon dioxide levels were increasing, but in the same speech gave an unalloyed defense of the oil industry and predicted that hydrocarbons would dominate the world’s transportation as energy demand grows by an expected 40 percent by 2030. Tillerson stated that there's no significant alternative to oil in coming decades, and that ExxonMobil would continue to make petroleum and natural gas its primary products, saying: "I'm no expert on biofuels. I don't know much about farming and I don't know much about moonshine. ... There is really nothing ExxonMobil can bring to that whole biofuels issue. We don't see a direct role for ourselves with today's technology."

Criticism

Foreign business practices

Investigative reporting by Forbes Magazine raised questions about ExxonMobil's dealings with the leaders of oil-rich nations." ExxonMobil controls concessions covering 11 million acres (44,500 km²) off the coast of Angola that hold an estimated 7.5 billion barrels (1.2 km³) of crude. In 2003, the Office of Foreign Assets Control reported that ExxonMobil engaged in illegal trade with Sudan and it, along with dozens of other companies, settled with the United States government for $50,000.
In March 2003, James Giffen of the Mercator Corporation was indicted, accused of bribing President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan with $78 million to help ExxonMobil win a 25 percent share of the Tengiz oilfield, the third largest in the world. On April 2, 2003, former-Mobil executive J. Bryan Williams was indicted on tax charges relating to this same transaction. The case is the largest under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act. This series of events is depicted in the film Syriana.
In a U.S. Department of Justice release dated September 18, 2003, the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York announced that J. Bryan Williams, a former senior executive of Mobil Oil Corporation, had been sentenced to three years and ten months in prison on charges of evading income taxes on more than $7 million in unreported income, "including a $2 million kickback he received in connection with Mobil's oil business in Kazakhstan." According to documents filed with the court, Williams' unreported income included millions of dollars in kickbacks from governments, persons, and other entities with whom Williams conducted business while employed by Mobil. In addition to his sentence, Williams must pay a fine of $25,000 and more than $3.5 million in restitution to the IRS, in addition to penalties and interest.(External Link

)

Human rights

ExxonMobil is the target of human rights activists for actions taken by the corporation in the Indonesian territory of Aceh. In June 2001 a lawsuit against ExxonMobil was filed in the Federal District Court of the District of Columbia under the Alien Tort Claims Act. The suit alleges that the ExxonMobil knowingly assisted human rights violations, including torture, murder and rape, by employing and providing material support to Indonesian military forces, who committed the alleged offenses during civil unrest in Aceh. Human rights complaints involving ExxonMobil's relationship with the Indonesian military first arose in 1992; the company denies these accusations and has filed a motion to dismiss the suit, which as of 2006 is still pending.

Same-sex couples

When Exxon Corporation merged with Mobil Corporation in 1999, the newly-merged company ended enrollment in Mobil Corporation's domestic partner benefits for same-sex partners of employees, and it rescinded formal prohibitions against discrimination based on sexual orientation by removing it from the company's Equal Employment Opportunity policy.
   The combined company still doesn't provide domestic partnership benefits, although former Mobil employees continue to receive that benefit.
   According to a proxy statement and 2006 Corporate Citizenship Report, the company "has zero tolerance discrimination and harassment policies" on "discrimination and harassment for any reason, including sexual orientation." However, the company doesn't include sexual orientation as a protected category in its Standards of Business Conduct: Equal Employment Opportunitypolicy, as over 90 percent of the Fortune 500 have done. In 2007, 37.2% of ExxonMobil shareholders voted in favor of a shareholder resolution to add "sexual orientation" to the policy.
   ExxonMobil scored a 0 out of 100 on the Human Rights Campaign's Corporate Equality Index 2006 for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.Further Information

Get more info on 'Exxon Corporation'.

External Link Exchanges

Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:

<a href="http://exxonmobil.totallyexplained.com">ExxonMobil Totally Explained</a>

Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned.