Yesterday NLPC circulated an eight-page memorandum to fellow shareholders in Exxon Mobil Corporation, making the case for them to vote against the re-election of CEO Darren Woods (pictured above) to the board of directors. Back in November, shortly after President Trump‘s re-election after which he repeatedly stated that he planned to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (again, as he did during his first term), Woods stated at the United Nations Climate Change Conference (“COP29”) that the U.S. should remain in the pact. Woods also told CNBC that he didn’t see how “drill, baby, drill,” one of the President’s campaign slogans, translated into policy.
This is the Chairman and CEO of an oil and gas company. However, Woods’s passion seems to be greater for Exxon Mobil’s development of carbon capture and sequestration schemes, which are heavily subsidized under the misnamed Inflation Reduction Act and are not economically viable without those incentives. Thus his comments at COP29:
Woods told CNBC on Tuesday that Exxon’s investments in technologies to lower emissions depend on federal tax credits that were established or expanded under the IRA. He warned that the company’s investments in these technologies would change if the incentives are weakened or repealed.
Shortly after Woods’s COP29 remarks, NLPC sent a letter to the Company’s board requesting Woods’s resignation or removal as Chairman and CEO. We had also presented a shareholder proposal at last year’s annual meeting seeking to eliminate greenhouse gas emissions reduction incentives from executive pay.
NLPC’s memorandum to ExxonMobil’s shareholders was filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday — an excerpt:
Mr. Woods’s rhetoric confirms that ExxonMobil’s capital program now embraces climate politics rather than market demand – precisely the misalignment our 2024 proposal sought to cure. Maybe his personal compensation has something to do with it. His pay package for last year rose by 19.3 percent to $44.1 million. Certainly eliminating the threat of no greenhouse gas emission reduction incentives made him breathe easier. It doesn’t alleviate suspicions that not a single climate- or environment-minded shareholder group submitted proposals for this year’s proxy statement.
Woods appears to suffer from PTSD due to the 2021 board insurgency by the green-minded hedge fund activists at Engine No. 1. Now the investment group is in business with Chevron to develop natural gas plants for data centers, which would allegedly be capable of attaching carbon capture and sequestration functions. Are the Engine No. 1 agents doing something similar with ExxonMobil? Is Woods cutting in climate activist shareholders in on deals so they’ll leave the Company alone at their annual meetings? The Wall Street Journal recently reported:
Exxon plans to plow up to $30 billion into hydrogen, carbon capture, biofuels and lithium production through 2030.
Mr. Woods has stressed that such investments depend on the Inflation Reduction Act’s rich federal tax credits. Even with these subsidies, they remain unprofitable because there isn’t a market for them. Why would a steelmaker swap cheap natural gas for costly hydrogen? Or an airline pay 10 times as much for fuel made from plants as from petroleum?
Exxon’s proposed carbon-intensity standard would compel other companies to subsidize its money-losing bets. While Mr. Woods said “governments should not pick winners and losers,” this is precisely what his company is proposing. Fossil-fuel producers and their customers would be the losers. Investors in “low carbon” fuels would be the winners.
Last year Woods shared a stage with notorious Clinton fixer, anti-Trump lawfare operative, and Biden EPA slush fund manager John Podesta, who is also one of the orchestrators of the militant left’s climate agenda. The pair debated how fast and how aggressively to “decarbonize” the global economy for no environmental benefit, and thus assure the eventual destruction of companies like Exxon Mobil. Undoubtedly if Podesta could have been injected with truth serum, he’d have stated he’d be more than happy to see Woods sidelined, refineries shuttered, and Exxon in ruins. Watch Woods’s cowardice here:
Attempting to control carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and thus managing ExxonMobil’s decline, isn’t the only losing proposition on Woods’s agenda. He also likes to surround himself with co-leaders who have failed in previous roles, such as current director Larry Kellner, who was chairman at Boeing in recent years as the company suffered multiple chronic safety and manufacturing catastrophes. Woods and his fellow directors thought that made Kellner qualified to lead ExxonMobil’s board safety committee. Seriously.
@Boeing is having a horrible year — so bad that Chairman Larry Kellner is leaving the board … So why does @exxonmobil want Kellner on their board?? … #Boeing #Boeing737 #Exxon #ExxonMobil #BigOil #energy pic.twitter.com/psExxOaKIV
— NLPC (@NLPC) May 9, 2024
Woods also saw fit last year to promote General Motors castoff Dan Ammann from his position leading ExxonMobil’s “Low Carbon Solutions” division, to run the Company’s Upstream operations. Yet another example of boosting personnel and resources where the priorities are carbon dioxide control via corporate welfare.
This is no way to run an oil and gas business so it can reach its full potential for shareholders. Woods must go.
