Criticism of ExxonMobil
As the world's largest majority investor-owned oil and gas corporation, ExxonMobil has received significant amounts of controversy and criticism, mostly due to its activities which increase the speed of climate change and its denial of global warming.
The largest direct descendant of Standard Oil is also attributed to various human rights violations, especially in Indonesia, and for its vast possession and usage of geopolitical influence.
[6][7]As of 2005[update], ExxonMobil had committed less than 1% of their profits towards researching alternative energy,[8] which, according to the advocacy organization Ceres, is less than other leading oil companies.
Because carcasses typically sink to the seafloor, it is estimated the death toll may be 250,000 seabirds, 2,800 sea otters, 300 harbor seals, 250 bald eagles, and up to 22 killer whales.
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.
[15] After a trial, a jury ordered ExxonMobil to pay $5 billion in punitive damages, though an appeals court reduced that amount by half.
[11] The study reported that in the early 20th century Standard Oil of New York operated a major refinery in the area where the spill is located.
[23] On June 14, 2012, a bleeder plug on a tank in the Baton Rouge Refinery failed and began leaking naphtha, a substance that is composed of many chemicals including benzene.
"[32] On March 29, 2013, the Pegasus Pipeline, owned by ExxonMobil and carrying Canadian Wabasca heavy crude, ruptured in Mayflower, Arkansas, releasing about 3,190 barrels (507 m3) of oil and forcing the evacuation of 22 homes.
[33] Scientists and environmental groups have voiced concern that the Sakhalin-I oil and gas project in the Russian Far East, operated by an ExxonMobil subsidiary Exxon Neftegas, threatens the critically endangered western gray whale population.
[40] In 2004, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection sued ExxonMobil for $8.9 billion for lost wetland resources at Constable Hook in Bayonne and Bayway Refinery in Linden.
[41] Although a New Jersey Superior Court justice was believed to be close to a ruling, the Christie Administration repeatedly asked the judge to wait, since they were reaching a settlement with ExxonMobil's attorneys.
ExxonKnew's earliest roots are traced to a 2012 meeting of activist lawyers (which defenders of ExxonMobil call the La Jolla Junta).
ExxonMobil's efforts to dismiss litigation failed in Massachusetts where that state's highest court ruled in 2022 that Exxon could stand trial.
[61] Greenpeace obtained documents showing that Soon had received a total of $1.25m from ExxonMobil, Southern Company, the American Petroleum Institute (API) and a foundation run by the Koch family over a period of 14 years.
[64] Steve Coll describes Lee Raymond, the corporation's chief executive until 2005, as "notoriously skeptical about climate change and disliked government interference at any level".
"[65] In 1937, Iraq Petroleum Company (IPC), 23.75 percent owned by a corporate ancestor of ExxonMobil,[66] signed an oil concession agreement with the Sultan of Muscat.
IPC offered financial support to raise an armed force that would assist the Sultan in occupying the interior region of Oman, an area that geologists believed to be rich in oil.
[71][72] ExxonMobil was one of the many large oil and gas companies which reported record profits on multiple instances in 2022, amidst the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the inflation surge, attracting global criticism.
US President Joe Biden has criticized ExxonMobil specifically, and in June amidst record oil prices, stated that "Exxon made more money than God this year".
