After skimming threads, I have not seen this article referenced here, but it is a goodie.
I'd heard $35M expended on gas-lighting defense, but this lays it out clearly.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobeccles/2021/04/29/exxonmobils-investor-magical-mystery-tour-waiting-to-take-you-away/?sh=5476da362434
5 years ago, this would have been a pipe-dream by 5 nuns in a convent.
@yjf - Exxon and Mobil actively embarked on separate ventures to go into new business areas. For example, Exxon went into computers and batteries, Mobil into plastic consumer goods. Both made a complete hash of it, because they didn't understand the markets in which they were trying to compete. The leading people from Exxon's battery technology team left the company and found successful careers in other industries and in academia. Mobil sold off their consumer goods business, with the most successful products now being marketed under the "Hefty" brand.
Please don't kid yourself that "the algae and CCUS seem like the kinds of technologies that use EM's strengths, and so quite a reasonable approach to take". These projects do NOT rely on in-house expertise - CSR is completely reliant on 3rd party knowledge: Synthetic Genomics for algae, Universities and Global Thermostat (the least successful specialist company in this area) for carbon capture.
@xms - it's not just Trump voters. The Brexit vote in the UK was the same. When you lose all confidence in the integrity of the government administration and realize that all career politicians are the same (corrupt and in the game to amass personal fortune and power), all you can do is vote for somebody from outside the system or vote to leave the system altogether.
@msn+1aIFpBb8
Are you seriously comparing a hobby product to the substances that sustain the world’s current off the charts standard of living?
@yjf+1aIFpBb8 Kodak, once a “blue chip” company, refused to move out of their field of expertise when the first digital cameras were commercialized in the early 90s and chose the denial mode instead (these devices are gadgets, the real experts in photography will always stick to film cameras, blah-blah-blah).
Look at what happened to Kodak in less than 20 years and where they are now...
I'm sure this has been discussed many times by others, but I still don't understand why other oil companies are switching to things like solar panels. Their expertise is in geoscience, chemistry, and related fields. Are they going to throw that experience away and transition to a new business where they do not have any competitive advantage just because they are a company associated with "energy"? It makes more sense to me for them to transition away from energy and instead become more focused on mining or chemicals. I know there is so far very little to show for the efforts, but the algae and CCUS seem like the kinds of technologies that use EM's strengths, and so quite a reasonable approach to take. When digital cameras came along the likes of Kodak and Agfa tried to make digital cameras. Some people say that they failed because they started too late, but I think the problem was that the only similarity between digital cameras and those companies' strengths was that they both involve cameras, but in reality require completely different capabilities. Abandoning cameras and instead focusing on chemical manufacturing, which was much closer to their area of expertise, might have saved them from throwing away a lot of money.
%hgd. Interesting. I always thought of Forbes as US Weekly
Forbes. the Cosmopolitan for investors.
Very good summary. A little heavy-handed.
For current EM management, unfortunately, they believe the word 'message' has as its root word 'mess.' As in 'what a...'.
“ It has no credible plan to protect and create value during the inevitable energy transition.” lol BTC and KLTC is their strategy.