Darren W. Woods | |
---|---|
Born | 1964or1965(age 58–59) [1] |
Education | Texas A&M University (BS) Northwestern University (MBA) |
18th President of ExxonMobil | |
Assumed office January 1, 2016 | |
Preceded by | Rex W. Tillerson |
16th Chairman of ExxonMobil | |
Assumed office January 1,2017 | |
Preceded by | Rex W. Tillerson |
Darren W. Woods (born 1964/65) is an American businessman who is the chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman of ExxonMobil since January 1,2017. [2] His salary exceeds $20,000,000 per year. [3]
Woods was born in Wichita,Kansas. He earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Texas A&M University,followed by an MBA from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management. [4] [5]
Woods joined Exxon in 1992. He had worked for Exxon for 24 years prior to being promoted to CEO following Rex Tillerson's nomination by President Donald Trump to be the next United States Secretary of State. [2] [6] While his predecessor was involved in deal making and exploration,Woods is a veteran of the refining side of the oil business. [7] Prior to becoming CEO,Woods ran the refining and chemical divisions of the company,which delivered the majority of ExxonMobil's $7.8 billion net income in 2016. [8]
At an investor meeting in New York in 2017,Woods outlined his growth plan including drilling in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico and the Bakken shale formation in North Dakota. He also spoke briefly about the company's operations in Russia,expressing an optimistic outlook regarding Exxon's Sakhalin project on Russia's eastern coast. [7]
Woods has said that the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing has "shattered the Peak Oil myth". [8] Woods has publicly endorsed the Paris climate accord. The accord commits nations to cutting greenhouse gas emissions. [9] In May 2017,Woods wrote a personal letter to President Trump to urge that the U.S. remain a party to the agreement. He says that by remaining a party to the accords the U.S. will have a seat at the table to "ensure a level playing field" and support "the most cost-effective greenhouse gas reduction options". [10]
On October 5,2020,Bloomberg News reported that Exxon was set to increase its annual carbon emissions by about 17%,or about as much as the annual output of Greece. The emissions expansion would be built off an investment plan reportedly signed off by Woods. Exxon said its internal projections are "a preliminary,internal assessment of estimated cumulative emission growth through 2025 and did not include the [additional] mitigation and abatement measures that would have been evaluated in the planning process. Furthermore,the projections identified in the leaked documents have significantly changed,a fact that was not fully explained or prominently featured in the article." [11]
In 2022,Woods was named one of the US' top 'climate villains' by The Guardian after "Exxon lobbyists were captured on video revealing the company’s efforts to obstruct climate legislation in Congress." [12]
On December 8,2023,Woods attended the Chemical Marketing &Economics gala in New York City,to be honored with a “STEM leadership award”for “harnessing the transformative power of chemistry to advance humanity”. [13] Because of his role in increasing oil and gas consumption,a group of climate activists disrupted and brought an end to the gala. They carried a banner that notably read "Eat shit Darren". [14]
In 2021,Woods denied that Exxon had covered up its own research about Big Oil's contribution to the climate crisis. The chair of the Congressional committee taking Woods' testimony likened Woods' denial to the decades' long lies by the American tobacco industry denying that nicotine is addictive. [15] Woods also declined to make a pledge to stop lobbying against climate initiatives. [15]
Lee Roy Raymond is an American businessman and was the chief executive officer (CEO) and chairman of ExxonMobil from 1999 to 2005. He had previously been the CEO of Exxon since 1993. He joined the company in 1963 and served as president from 1987 and a director beginning in 1984.
ConocoPhillips Company is an American multinational corporation engaged in hydrocarbon exploration and production. It is based in the Energy Corridor district of Houston,Texas.
Marathon Petroleum Corporation is an American petroleum refining,marketing,and transportation company headquartered in Findlay,Ohio. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of Marathon Oil until a corporate spin-off in 2011.
Myron Ebell is an American climate change denier who serves as the Director of Global Warming and International Environmental Policy at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI),an American libertarian advocacy group based in Washington,D.C. He is also chairman of the Cooler Heads Coalition,a politically conservative group formed in 1997 focused on "dispelling the myths of global warming by exposing flawed economic,scientific,and risk analysis". In September 2016,Ebell was appointed by then Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump to lead his transition team for the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Suncor Energy is a Canadian integrated energy company based in Calgary,Alberta. It specializes in production of synthetic crude from oil sands. In the 2020 Forbes Global 2000,Suncor Energy was ranked as the 48th-largest public company in the world.
Business action on climate change includes a range of activities relating to climate change,and to influencing political decisions on climate change-related regulation,such as the Kyoto Protocol. Major multinationals have played and to some extent continue to play a significant role in the politics of climate change,especially in the United States,through lobbying of government and funding of climate change deniers. Business also plays a key role in the mitigation of climate change,through decisions to invest in researching and implementing new energy technologies and energy efficiency measures.
Rex Wayne Tillerson is an American energy executive who served as the 69th United States secretary of state from 2017 to 2018 in the administration of Donald Trump. From 2006 to 2016,he was chairman and chief executive officer (CEO) of ExxonMobil.
XTO Energy Inc. is an American energy company and subsidiary of ExxonMobil principally operating in North America. Acquired by ExxonMobil in 2010 and based out of Spring,Texas,it is involved with the production,processing,transportation,and development of oil and natural gas resources. The company specializes in developing shale gas via unconventional means like hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling.
The fossil fuels lobby includes paid representatives of corporations involved in the fossil fuel industry,as well as related industries like chemicals,plastics,aviation and other transportation. Because of their wealth and the importance of energy,transport and chemical industries to local,national and international economies,these lobbies have the capacity and money to attempt to have outsized influence on governmental policy. In particular,the lobbies have been known to obstruct policy related to environmental protection,environmental health and climate action.
Human rights violations in Aceh,Indonesia occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s when ExxonMobil hired Indonesian military units to guard their Arun gas field,and these military units raided and razed local villages. Government inquiries have extensively documented these abuses. Victims allege that ExxonMobil knew about the atrocities,which include assault,torture,and murder,and should be liable for them. The company denies these accusations;its primary defense is that the human rights violations which were occurring were not a result of specific intention of the organization and therefore it cannot be held liable.
ExxonMobil Corporation is an American multinational oil and gas corporation and the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. The company,which took its present name in 1999 per the merger of Exxon and Mobil,is vertically integrated across the entire oil and gas industry,and within it is also a chemicals division which produces plastic,synthetic rubber,and other chemical products. ExxonMobil is headquartered near the Houston suburb of Spring,Texas,though officially incorporated in the U.S. state of New Jersey.
Pioneer Natural Resources Company,headquartered in Irving,Texas,is engaged in hydrocarbon exploration. It operates in the Cline Shale,which is part of the Spraberry Trend of the Permian Basin,where the company is the largest acreage holder. Pioneer is presently undergoing an acquisition by ExxonMobil,which in October 2023 agreed to acquire the company in the largest merger in the energy industry in 20 years;closing is expected in the first half of 2024.
Exxon Neftegas Limited is a defunct subsidiary of the American oil company ExxonMobil which operated mostly in Russia,notably Sakhalin and other parts of the Far East. ENL was the primary American operator of Sakhalin-I Consortium,which oversaw exploration and production of oil and gas on both Sakhalin island and in the Chayvo,Odoptu and Arkutun-Dagi fields in the Sea of Okhotsk. The subsidiary is incorporated in the Bahamas and has an office in Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Exxon Neftgas was led by future ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson from 1998 to at least May 2001.
The East-Prinovozemelsky field is a gigantic undeveloped Arctic oil and gas field located in the South Kara basin of the continental shelf of Russia,in the South Kara Sea between the Yamal Peninsula and Novaya Zemlya island. It is the continuation of the continental West Siberian hydrocarbon province.
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.
Tan Sri Wan Zulkiflee bin Wan Ariffin is a Malaysian businessman;the chairman of Malaysia Airlines and former president and CEO of Petronas. In 2021,he was appointed a member of the ExxonMobil board of directors,becoming the first non-American appointed to the board. He was ousted four months later during shareholder votes.
Since the 1970s,American fossil fuel and energy corporation ExxonMobil has engaged in climate research focusing on global warming. It later began lobbying,advertising,and grant making,some of which were conducted with the purpose of delaying widespread acceptance and action on global warming.
On June 1,2017,US President Donald Trump announced that the United States would cease all participation in the 2015 Paris Agreement on climate change mitigation,contending that the agreement would "undermine" the U.S. economy,and put the U.S. "at a permanent disadvantage."
The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI),is an international industry-led organization which includes 12 member companies from the oil and gas industry:BP,Chevron,CNPC,Eni,Equinor,ExxonMobil,Occidental,Petrobras,Repsol,Saudi Aramco,Shell and TotalEnergies represent over "30% of global operated oil and gas production." It was established in 2014 and has a mandate to work together to "accelerate the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions" in full support of the Paris Agreement and its aims."
ExxonMobil,an American multinational oil and gas corporation presently based out of Texas,has had one of the longest histories of any company in its industry. A direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil,the company traces its roots as far back as 1886 to the founding of the Vacuum Oil Company,which would become part of ExxonMobil through its own merger with Mobil during the 1930s. The present name of the company comes from a 1999 merger of Standard Oil's New Jersey and New York successors,which adopted the names Exxon and Mobil respectively throughout the middle of the 20th century. Because of Standard Oil of New Jersey's ownership over all Standard Oil assets at the time of the 1911 breakup,ExxonMobil is seen by some as the definitive continuation of Standard Oil today.