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By JAD MOUAWAD
Lee R. Raymond, who retired from Exxon in December, was paid more than $686 million from 1993 to 2005. April 15, 2006BusinessSidebar
By JAD MOUAWAD
If Rex W. Tillerson has his way, Exxon Mobil will no longer be the oil company that environmentalists love to hate. March 30, 2006BusinessNews
 Exxonerated Rockefailure Change
Rockefeller kin urge Exxon to think beyond oil
15 descendants push for renewable energy, cuts in warming emissions
MSNBC News Services
updated 11:45 a.m. ET April 30, 2008
The family members, who describe themselves as the company's longest continuous shareholders, said they are concerned that the Irving, Texas-based company is too focused on short-term gains from soaring oil prices and should do more to invest in cleaner technology for the future.
"They are fighting the last war and they're not seeing they're facing a new war," said Peter O'Neill, who heads the Rockefeller Family committee dealing with Exxon Mobil and is the great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller.
He said he had the support of more than 80 percent of family members over the age of 21. Family representatives said it was a significant holding for the Rockefellers but that they were not sure how much of the company they actually own collectively.
Photo by mark Lennihan / Ap
Peter O'Neill, a great-great-grandson of John D. Rockefeller, speaks at a news conference on Wednesday in New York. At left is Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, who like O'Neill urged Exxon Mobil to think beyond oil.
NEW YORK - Members of the Rockefeller family, descended from the founder of what became Exxon Mobil Corp., challenged the oil giant Wednesday to focus more on renewable sources of energy.
They also seek to establish a task force study of the consequences of global warming on poor economies, and called on Exxon to reduce greenhouse gas emission at its own operations.
Exxon is "profiting in the short term from investments and decisions made many years ago by focusing on the narrow path that ignores the rapidly shifting energy landscape around the world, including developing nations," said Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, a great granddaughter of John D. Rockefeller.
Exxon Mobil was formde by the combination of two offspring of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust. It is now the world's largest publicly traded oil company.
Members of the family said they have sponsored four proxy resolutions this year that raised concerns about the company's leadership under Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson. They also said they have spent years behind the scenes prodding the company to change its approach to the oil business.
'Trying to keep a giant ... from falling'
The family and its allies decided to take their case public, they said, because they believe future energy will come from sources other than oil and natural gas, and say the company needs to move more quickly into sustainable technology to secure its long-term viability.
"We all know the saying: The bigger they are, the harder they fall," said Connecticut State Treasurer Denise Nappier, who oversees a pension fund that holds $300 million in Exxon Mobil stock — its largest single equity investment. She spoke at a press conference alongside the Rockefellers.
"We are trying to keep a giant — and it truly is a giant in the oil and gas industry — from falling," Nappier said.
Goodwin called on Exxon to reconnect with the forward-looking vision of her great grandfather.
"Kerosene was the alternative energy of its day when he realized it could replace whale oil," she said. "Part of John D. Rockefeller's genius was in recognizing early the need and opportunity for a transition to a better, cheaper and cleaner fuel."
Huge profit expected
The calls for reform came one day before Exxon Mobil was expected to report first-quarter earnings of more than $11 billion, according to according to a survey by Thomson Financial. Thanks to rapidly rising oil prices, that is considerably more than the company earned a year earlier, and could even top Exxon Mobil's own record for the biggest quarterly profit in U.S. history.
The company's board is recommending shareholders vote against a proposal to split the role of chairman and CEO. In a recent proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the board said "that the most effective leadership structure for Exxon Mobil Corporation at the present time is for Mr. Tillerson to serve as both Chairman and CEO."
Exxon Mobil spokesman Gantt Walton said the company has met with members of the Rockefeller family on multiple occasions and "respects the rights of all shareholders to make their views known," but that it does not comment on details of meetings with shareholders.
The stock is up more than 63 percent since Tillerson became CEO on Jan. 1, 2006, compared with a gain of 11.4 percent for the broad S&P 500 index over the same period.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
Can Rockefeller Heirs Turn Exxon Greener?
Published: May 4, 2008
It has become a habit when Exxon Mobil has a blockbuster quarter, as it did last week, for the company to come under fire for driving up gasoline prices. But attacks from the heirs of John D. Rockefeller, the indomitable capitalist who formed the Standard Oil Trust, which eventually became Exxon?
It turns out that some of John D.’s descendants would like to see changes at the oil giant and are publicly challenging the company’s current boss, Rex W. Tillerson. Specifically, they are behind proxy resolutions demanding that the roles of chairman and chief executive be split and that Exxon invest more in alternative energy.
“They are fighting the last war and they’re not seeing they’re facing a new war,” said Peter O’Neill, a great-great-grandson of the company’s founder. Another family member, Neva Rockefeller Goodwin, an economist, said, “we feel so passionately about them becoming the best company that they can.”
Exxon didn’t seem too shaken by the threat from the Rockefeller name. It points out that these family members represent only 0.006 percent of Exxon’s stock.
Exxon’s shareholder meeting is May 28. The board has recommended voting against the resolution splitting the chairman and chief executive positions.
“We take their concerns very seriously” Kenneth P. Cohen, a company representative, said, “as we do those of all our shareholders.”
Cambodia’s oil curse?
May 7th, 2007 by Andrew Walker · 7 Comments
Today’s Sydney Morning Herald carries a good story on Cambodia’s oil find. Here is an extract:
Still clawing its way out of the ruins of its brutal past, Cambodia has come face to face with an extraordinary new future: it seems to have struck oil. The oil giant Chevron says it has found potentially huge deposits off the southern shore, as a result of exploratory drilling that began two years ago. The company has not made the results known, but given other likely deposits nearby and with mineral finds being explored onshore, experts say, Cambodia could be a resource-rich nation. Senior officials, including the Prime Minister, Hun Sen, have been feeding the excitement this year, offering extravagantly optimistic estimates that the oil money could start to flow within two or three years. But this is not necessarily good news. For many struggling countries, such as Nigeria and Chad, oil has dragged them into deeper poverty and corruption in what some call the oil curse.
Occasional New Mandala contributor, Maylee, has a good comment over at the RMAP Blog:
There has been much journalistic debate over whether or not Cambodia is likely to use it’s new found oil wealth for the good of its people or whether it will further enhance Cambodia’s status as Southeast Asia’s most rampant kleptocracy. Hun Sen has repeatedly sworn it will be used to the benefit of all Cambodian people. Not that “the people” are likely to be heard at the polls if they this doesn’t happen - Hun Sen recently won 98% of commune chief positions in last month’s commune elections. One commentator at a Cambodian website noted that this result is second only to Sadam Hussien’s election result prior to American invasion.
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Please compare: Sudden Wealth Fund, Cambodian Oil & Gas under World Stability Council, left menue!
“Follow the money” is the advice routinely offered to detectives in low-budget thrillers. For anyone attempting to understand the ebbs and flows of international politics, I offer a variant of that old line: “Follow the oil”.
Any suggestion that the search for energy is fundamental to the foreign policy of Britain and the US is often treated as faintly indecent. In Britain, the government is currently angrily brushing off suggestions that the decision to release Adbelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi, the Libyan convicted of the Lockerbie bombing, had anything to do with Libya’s oil and gas. Jack Straw, the UK justice secretary, has released letters in which he spoke of considering prisoner transfers to Libya, in the context of “wider negotiations” and the “overwhelming interests” of the UK. He did not use the word “oil”; but, under mounting pressure, he has since admitted that trade and oil interests were “a very big part” of Britain’s desire to bring Libya “back into the fold”.
It is true that oil is not the only interest Britain has at stake in Libya. But the search for more secure and diverse energy supplies is increasingly important to UK foreign policy. Britain’s North Sea reserves are running down and the country is worrying about a looming energy crisis. Libya looks like a promising possible supplier of both oil and natural gas that is unusually open to foreign oil companies. BP and Royal Dutch Shell are the second and third biggest companies on the London stock exchange, and they have both signed exploration deals in Libya.
The relationship between Britain and Libya is just a minor example of a much broader phenomenon. Energy is at the heart of many of the biggest issues in international politics. That is because none of the world’s major economic powers – the US, China, Japan or the European Union – is close to self-sufficient in oil and gas. Global demand for energy is rising steadily and the major powers are jostling to secure supplies. In his recent book, Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet, Michael Klare, an American academic, argues that “a world of rising powers and shrinking resources is destined to produce intense competition among an expanding group of energy-consuming nations”. The book’s cover carries a warm endorsement from Dennis Blair, the US director of national intelligence.
There are many examples of how this “intense competition” for energy is already shaping the foreign policies of the world’s major powers. The tense relationship between Russia and the EU is defined by the fact that the EU is increasingly dependent on Russian energy supplies. When war briefly broke out between Russia and Georgia last year, western concern was heightened because Georgia offers the only plausible route for a gas pipeline from central Asia to the EU that bypasses Russia.
Later this month, western powers are likely to try to tighten sanctions on Iran because of its nuclear programme. But China and India are both wary of more sanctions because Iran is a key supplier of their energy needs. The Indians want to build a gas pipeline to bring Iranian gas to their domestic market. Iran is China’s third biggest oil supplier.
The Chinese are eager to tie up energy deals wherever they can – hence the country’s expanding interest in Africa. Angola is China’s second biggest supplier after Saudi Arabia. Indeed, Angola is an increasingly popular destination for world leaders. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, visited last month. Dmitry Medvedev, the Russian president, was there in June. The Brazilians are also increasingly popular after their discovery of a large new offshore oil field. China recently agreed to lend $10bn (£6bn, €7bn) to Petrobras, Brazil’s state-controlled oil company, in return for a guaranteed supply of oil.
Then, of course, there is the continuing puzzle over why the US invaded Iraq. There were doubtless many reasons why. But Alan Greenspan, the recently retired head of the US Federal Reserve, lamented in his memoirs that “it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil”.
Whether or not Mr Greenspan is right about Iraq, it is certainly true that America’s leaders worry a great deal about the availability and price of oil. You cannot blame them. The two oil shocks of the 1970s drove the economic “stagflation” that plagued Europe and America during that decade. By contrast, the long booms during the Reagan and Clinton years were underpinned by low oil prices. The fall in the oil price in the 1980s did a lot to bankrupt the Soviet Union. The rise in the oil price over the past decade has led to a richer and more assertive Russia.
As Daniel Yergin, a leading historian of the oil industry, puts it: “It is oil that makes possible where we live, how we live, how we commute to work ... Oil and gas are the essential components in the fertilizer on which world agriculture depends; oil makes it possible to transport food for the totally non-self-sufficient megacities of the world.”
Politicians know all this. They know that voters will punish them if fuel prices soar, or if there are electricity shortages. But they also know that if they openly put the search for oil at the heart of their foreign policies, they are liable to be denounced as cynical and immoral. When it comes to energy security, western politicians treat their voters like children – and behave like adults in private.
gideon.rachman@ft.com
Read and post comments online at Gideon Rachman’s blog
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