Saturday, April 30, 2022

ExxonMobil took a $3.4 billion hit for exiting Russia. Its profit still soared. It is the largest direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil. It's being sued for deception, that of claiming to recycle plastic.

Revenue at ExxonMobil soared 53% to $90.5 billion. Even with the charge for exiting Russia, net income doubled to $5.4 billion. And excluding special items, its income more than tripled to $8.8 billion from $2.7 billion a year earlier.

Yet it still failed to meet analysts expectations. 

How did it do this outstanding, but still not as incredibly as the career oil market analysts predicted? 


ExxonMobil's 2021 annual report put the value of its Russian assets at $4.1 billion, but that represented less than 2% of those assets worldwide.

So, they seem to be a company with 8 trillion dollars of assets


Chevron revenue jumped 70% to $54.4 billion, while its profit excluding special items more than tripled to $6.5 billion from $1.7 billion a year earlier, slightly topping Wall Street forecasts. Chrevon (CVX) shares still slipped slightly in premarket trading.


Revenue at Phillips 66 (PSX) rose 67% to $36.7 billion, and it swung to a $595 million profit excluding special items, compared to a $509 million loss a year earlier. That topped Wall Street forecasts.


Meanwhile, here's that story about the plastics recycling deception lawsuit, from California's Attorney General, who is running for re-election

The lawsuit is part of what Attorney General Bonta called a first-of-its-kind broader investigation into the petroleum industry for its alleged role in causing a global plastic pollution crisis.

Attorney General Bonta said on Thursday that the industry for decades has encouraged the development and use of petroleum-based plastic products while seeking to minimize public understanding that their widespread use harms the environment and public health.

Bonta said ExxonMobil was subpoenaed as a significant source of global plastics pollution and for its alleged prominent role in public deception regarding plastics, saying that the industry appears to have engaged in “greenwashing” for decades by leading consumers to believe that plastics were environmentally friendly and can easily be recycled.

That marketing effort made “people comfortable to consume more and purchase more plastic,” he said. “And that is really the heart of the deception that we’re going to investigate.”

Bonta said his main goal is a legal order or a settlement requiring companies to clean up plastic waste, make plastics manufacturing changes and promote “non-deceptive ways of talking about plastics”.

“We’re really looking at the underlying issue of non-recyclability, essentially, of plastics, and that is a major problem,” Bonta said. “And we’re investigating whether that was fueled by a decades-old campaign of deception.”


I bet he isn't looking into, nor will there be any analysis of, the state of California's recycling programs for plastics. 

California Attorney General Rob Bonta on Thursday announced a major investigation into companies that manufacture plastics, the first of its kind in the nation, saying that for 50 years they have been engaged in potentially illegal business practices by misleadingly claiming that plastics products are recyclable, when most are not.

Bonta said he issued subpoenas to ExxonMobil, with other companies likely to follow, and said society’s growing plastics pollution problem — particularly in oceans, which are littered by trillions of tiny pieces of plastic — is something they are legally liable for and should be ordered to address.

“In California and across the globe, we are seeing the catastrophic results of the fossil fuel industry’s decades-long campaign of deception,” Bonta said.

The companies could be liable under California laws that prohibit fraudulent claims by industry, unfair business practices or environmental pollution, he said.

Half the plastic that has ever existed on Earth was made in the last 20 years.

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