White House vs Exxon

In this buzz: White House vs Exxon; Oil industry under pressure; windfall taxes in Europe and more…

$55.7bn in profit last year for the oil giant ExxonMobil.
It is more than double 2021’s figures and is likely to renew pressure on the industry after some countries imposed special taxes on the profits last year.

Exxon has criticized such measures as counter-productive.
It sued the European Union over the new windfall tax and has spoken out against similar proposals in the US where President Joe Biden put the blame for last year’s high gas cost on companies failing to spend their profits to boost supply.

No, they didn’t…?
In an interview with CNBC, Exxon boss Darren Woods said the White House needed to “get its facts straight”, stating that the firm had continued to spend money on oil and gas projects despite pressure from investors and others to shift investments to renewable energy.

The ups and downs:

• 2020
  Exxon’s shares sank sharply in 2020, when demand for oil tumbled, leading the firm to report its first loss in decades.
• 2021 till Now
  But the price of the shares has soared since 2021, especially since oil prices jumped when the war in Ukraine disrupted energy supplies last year.

The company said it took a hit of:

• $1.3bn in the final months of 2022, mainly from extra European taxes.
• a $3.4bn charge for the year stemming from the expropriation of its investments in Russia.

The Plan:
The firm said it had been working hard to reduce costs, and profits would have been even higher without the windfall taxes in Europe.

Exxon said it increased investment by about 38% last year. In some key areas, such as Guyana and the Permian Basin, production was up more than 30%, offsetting output lost due to divestments and the change in Russia, the company said.

Overall oil production increased about 3% in 2022, to 2,354 thousands of barrels per day from 2,289 thousands of barrels per day in 2021.