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Exxon Mobil Corporation (NYSE: XOM) or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil company,[4] and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil. Its headquarters are in Irving, Texas. It is affiliated with Imperial Oil which operates in Canada.
ExxonMobil[5] is one of the largest publicly traded companies by market capitalization in the world, having been ranked either No.1 or No. 2 for the past 5 years. Exxon Mobil's reserves were 72 billion oil-equivalent barrels at the end of 2007 and, at then (2007) rates of production, are expected to last over 14 years.[6] With 37 oil refineries in 21 countries constituting a combined daily refining capacity of 6.3 million barrels, Exxon Mobil is the largest refiner in the world,[7][8] a title that was also associated with Standard Oil since its incorporation in 1870.[9]
ExxonMobil is the largest of the six oil supermajors[10] with daily production of 3.921 million BOE (barrels of oil equivalent). In 2008, this was approximately 3% of world production, which is less than several of the largest state-owned petroleum companies.[11] When ranked by oil and gas reserves it is 14th in the world with less than 1% of the total.[12][13]
Contents [hide]
1 Organization
1.1 Operating divisions
2 History
3 Corporate affairs
3.1 Board of directors
4 Joint ventures and other strategic alliances
5 Production
6 Revenue and profits
7 Financial data
8 Environmental record
8.1 Exxon Valdez oil spill
8.2 Exxon's Brooklyn oil spill
8.3 Sakhalin-I in the Russian Far East
8.4 Funding of global warming skeptics
9 Criticism
9.1 Funding of Climate Science Denial
9.2 Environment
9.3 Foreign business practices
9.4 Human rights
9.5 LGBT
10 Headquarters
11 See also
12 Notes
13 References
13.1 Bibliography
14 External links
[edit]Organization
The Exxon Mobil Corporation headquarters is 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.
[edit]Operating divisions
ExxonMobil is organized functionally into a number of global operating divisions. These divisions are grouped into three categories for reference purposes, though the company also has several ancillary divisions, such as Coal & Minerals, which are stand alone.
Chart of the major energy companies dubbed "Big Oil", sorted by latest published revenue
Upstream (oil exploration, extraction, shipping, and wholesale operations) based in Houston, Texas
Downstream (marketing, refining, and retail operations) based in Fairfax, Virginia
Chemical division based in Houston, Texas
Operating divisions by category are as follows:
Upstream
ExxonMobil Exploration Company
ExxonMobil Development Company
ExxonMobil Production Company
ExxonMobil Gas and Power Marketing Company
ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company
ExxonMobil Upstream Ventures
Downstream
ExxonMobil Refining and Supply Company
SeaRiver Maritime
ExxonMobil Fuels Marketing Company
ExxonMobil Lubricants & Specialties Company
ExxonMobil Research and Engineering Company
International Marine Transportation
Chemical
ExxonMobil Chemical Company
ExxonMobil Global Services Company
ExxonMobil Information Technology
Global Real Estate and Facilities
Global Procurement
Business Support Centers
Imperial Oil
Infineum
Aera Energy
XTO
[edit]History
ExxonMobil Building, ExxonMobil offices in Downtown Houston
Exxon Mobil Corporation was formed in 1999 by the merger of two major oil companies, Exxon and Mobil. Both Exxon and Mobil were descendants of the John D. Rockefeller corporation, Standard Oil which was established in 1870. The reputation of Standard Oil in the public eye suffered badly after publication of Ida M. Tarbell's classic exposé The History of the Standard Oil Company in 1904, leading to a growing outcry for the government to take action against the company.
By 1911, with public outcry at a climax, the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that Standard Oil must be dissolved and split into 34 companies. Two of these companies were Jersey Standard ("Standard Oil Company of New Jersey"), which eventually became Exxon, and Socony ("Standard Oil Company of New York"), which eventually became Mobil.
In the same year, the nation's kerosene output was eclipsed for the first time by gasoline. The growing automotive market inspired the product trademark Mobiloil, registered by Socony in 1920.
Over the next few decades, both companies grew significantly. Jersey Standard, led by Walter C. Teagle, became the largest oil producer in the world. It acquired a 50 percent share in Humble Oil & Refining Co., a Texas oil producer. Socony purchased a 45 percent interest in Magnolia Petroleum Co., a major refiner, marketer and pipeline transporter. In 1931, Socony merged with Vacuum Oil Co., an industry pioneer dating back to 1866 and a growing Standard Oil spin-off in its own right.
In the Asia-Pacific region, Jersey Standard had oil production and refineries in Indonesia but no marketing network. Socony-Vacuum had Asian marketing outlets supplied remotely from California. In 1933, Jersey Standard and Socony-Vacuum merged their interests in the region into a 50–50 joint venture. Standard-Vacuum Oil Co., or "Stanvac," operated in 50 countries, from East Africa to New Zealand, before it was dissolved in 1962.
Mobil Chemical Company was established in 1950. As of 1999, its principal products included basic olefins and aromatics, ethylene glycol and polyethylene. The company produced synthetic lubricant base stocks as well as lubricant additives, propylene packaging films and catalysts. Exxon Chemical Company (first named Enjay Chemicals) became a worldwide organization in 1965 and in 1999 was a major producer and marketer of olefins, aromatics, polyethylene and polypropylene along with speciality lines such as elastomers, plasticizers, solvents, process fluids, oxo alcohols and adhesive resins. The company was an industry leader in metallocene catalyst technology to make unique polymers with improved performance.
In 1955, Socony-Vacuum became Socony Mobil Oil Co. and in 1966 simply Mobil Oil Corp. A decade later, the newly incorporated Mobil Corporation absorbed Mobil Oil as a wholly owned subsidiary. Jersey Standard changed its name to Exxon Corporation in 1972 and established Exxon as a trademark throughout the United States. In other parts of the world, Exxon and its affiliated companies continued to use its Esso trademark.
On March 24, 1989, the Exxon Valdez oil tanker struck Bligh Reef in Prince William Sound, Alaska and spilled more than 11 million US gallons (42,000 m3) of crude oil. The Exxon Valdez oil spill was the second largest in U.S. history, and in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez incident, the U.S. Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act of 1990. An initial award of $5 billion USD punitive was reduced to $507.5 million by the US Supreme Court in June 2008, and distributions of this award have commenced.
In 1998, Exxon and Mobil signed a US$73.7 billion definitive agreement to merge and form a new company called Exxon Mobil Corporation, the largest company on the planet. After shareholder and regulatory approvals, the merger was completed on November 30, 1999. The merger of Exxon and Mobil was unique in American history because it reunited the two largest companies of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil trust, Standard Oil Company of New Jersey/Exxon and Standard Oil Company of New York/Mobil, which had been forcibly separated by government order nearly a century earlier. This reunion resulted in the largest merger in US corporate history.
In 2000, ExxonMobil sold a refinery in Benicia, California and 340 Exxon-branded stations to Valero Energy Corporation, as part of an FTC-mandated divestiture of California assets. ExxonMobil continues to supply petroleum products to over 700 Mobil-branded retail outlets in California.
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 organization) put these profits in context by comparing oil industry profits to those of other large industries such as pharmaceuticals and banking.[14][15]
On June 12, 2008, ExxonMobil announced that it was exiting the retail fuel business, citing the increasing difficulty to run gas stations under rising crude oil costs. The multi-year process will gradually phase the corporation out of the direct market, and will affect 820 company-owned stations and approximately 1,400 other stations operated by dealers distributing across the United States. The sale has not resulted in the disappearance of Exxon and Mobil branded stations; the new owners will continue to sell ExxonMobil gasoline and license the appropriate names from ExxonMobil, who will in turn be compensated for use of the brands.[16]
In 2010, ExxonMobil bought XTO Energy, the company focused on development and production of unconventional resources.[17]
In terms of potential future developments, many gas and oil companies are considering the economic and environmental benefits of Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG). This is an innovative technology designed to enable the development of offshore gas resources that would otherwise remain untapped, because environmental or economic factors make it unviable to develop them via a land-based LNG operation. ExxonMobil is waiting for an appropriate project to launch its FLNG development,[18] and the only FLNG facility currently in development is being built by Shell,[19] due for completion in around 2017.[20]
On 30 August 2011, ExxonMobil announced a $3.2 billion joint venture with Russian oil cmpany Rosneft to develop two offshore oil fields in Russia, the East-Prinovozemelsky field in the Kara Sea and the Tuapse field in the Black Sea.[21]
[edit]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.
[edit]Board of directors
As of February 5, 2009, the current ExxonMobil board members are:[22]
Michael Boskin, professor of economics Stanford University, director of Oracle Corporation, Shinsei Bank, and Vodafone Group
Larry R. Faulkner, President, Houston Endowment; President Emeritus, the University of Texas at Austin
William W. George, professor of management practice, Harvard Business School
James R. Houghton, Chairman of the Board, Corning Incorporated
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
Marilyn Carlson Nelson, Chairman and CEO, Carlson Companies
Samuel J. Palmisano, Chairman of the Board, President and CEO, IBM Corporation
Joaquin Pelayo, Chairman of the Board and President, McGraw Hill.
Steven S Reinemund, retired Executive Chairman of the Board, PepsiCo
Walter V. Shipley, retired Chairman of the Board, Chase Manhattan Corporation
Rex Tillerson, Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, Exxon Mobil Corporation
Edward E. Whitacre, retired Chairman of the Board and Chief Executive Officer, AT&T
[edit]Joint ventures and other strategic alliances
Imperial Oil 70% Ownership in Imperial Oil
Infineum is a joint venture between ExxonMobil and Royal Dutch Shell for manufacturing and marketing lubricant and fuel additives.
Aera Energy LLC is an E&P joint venture with Shell Oil, operating in California.
[edit]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.[23]
ExxonMobil, like other oil companies, is struggling to find new sources of oil. According to Wall Street Journal it replaces only 95% by volume of the oil it pumps. This stands in contrast to natural gas, where it replaces 158% by volume through purchases or finds.[24]
ExxonMobil is a signatory participant of the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights.
[edit]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.[25] ExxonMobil's $340 billion revenues in 2005 were a 25.5 percent increase over their 2004 revenues.
In 2006, Wal-Mart recaptured the lead with revenues of $348.7 billion against ExxonMobil's $335.1. ExxonMobil continued to lead the world in both profits ($39.5 billion in 2006) and market value ($460.43 billion).[26]
In 2007, ExxonMobil had a record net income of $40.61 billion on $404.552 of revenue, an increase largely due to escalating oil prices as their actual oil equivalent production decreased by 1%, in part due to expropriation of their Venezuelan assets by the Chavez government.[27]
As of July 1, 2010, ExxonMobil occupied 8 out of 10 slots for Largest Corporate Quarterly Earnings of All Time. Furthermore, it occupies 5 out of 10 slots on Largest Corporate Annual Earnings.[28][29]
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