Oil and Gas Company Case Study: ExxonMobil

The oil and gas business is highly competitive in the exploration for and acquisitions of reserves, the acquisition of oil and gas leases, equipment and personnel required to find and produce reserves, and in the gathering and marketing of oil, gas, and natural gas liquids. The competitors include national oil companies, major integrated oil and gas companies, other independent oil and gas companies, and participants in other industries supplying energy and fuel to industrial, commercial, and individual consumers.

     Chevron Texaco, or Texaco Shell, is the leading competitor to ExxonMobil. Texaco is in the same areas of business as Exxon. Their petroleum products and lubricants are sold in the same markets, stores, and in many cases opposite street corners from each other. The two companies are very similar, but Exxon’s recent petroleum deals in the Middle East and Africa have allowed its stock price to jump ahead for the time being (1). In the industry, the two companies mainly compete for the ability to negotiate for new production. The competition is not made at the pump or at the local auto store. It seems that it’s more important to control oil than it is to sell it quickly. Because oil has so much value and power in the world, the industry is made of semi-friendly companies. Surviving and making as much profit as possible, is more important than trying to put people out of business.

(BP) happens to be one of the largest oil and gas companies in the world. There operations include the exploration and production of natural gas and crude oil; to include the refining of crude oil; and the manufacturing of petroleum products.

As of January 2017, US oil and natural gas companies have employed 177,000 to produce, refine, and distribute oil products. By 2024, experts project the number to rise to 220,000, an almost 25% increase. Oil and natural gas companies hoping to drill unconfirmed sites in the United States will need to employ more and more people. (6).

The largest world supplier oil company is Saudi Aramco. It is the most profitable company on the earth. Since it is the most powerful oil company, it has a great impact on the world economy. As a result, a strong international relationship was built with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In addition, the strong developing of international relationship with other industrial countries resulted in massive contributions to the politics, economy, and many different aspects. In 1933, Saudi government bestowed oil concession to California Arabian Standard Oil Company (Chevron). The main factor for this grant was to explore the oil in the eastern region of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. After discovering a huge amount of oil, part of the

From the recent case data, ExxonMobil has not acted irresponsibility in pricing its gasoline products. Outside of the grocery industry, I have not heard of any business segments surviving on less than a 5% profit margin. In reading that ExxonMobil reported only a net profit of 8.5%3, it is difficult to state that the firm over priced its products to reap abnormal profits. Although Mr. Lee Raymond’s $400 million retirement seems grossly out of proportion in utilitarian terms, adding these funds back into the firm’s bottom line would not change the profit results. With profit margins of less than 10%, it is unlikely that ExxonMobil would be able to keep the price of gasoline fixed if sweet crude oil were to increase from $80 per barrel to $88. This 10% increase in raw material cost would have to be passed through to the customer in the form of higher prices for the firm to survive.

The Brazilian national oil company Petrobras' expansion may represent the largest global business opportunity in the oil & gas sector until 2020. The offshore pre-salt oil deposits discovered in 2006 and 2007 are estimated to exceed 60 billion barrels in probable or recoverable reserves, and could place Brazil among the world’s top ten oil-producing countries. Petrobras anticipates that it will invest $224 billion in exploration and development through 2015.

Shell must be sharp and focus to sustain competitive advantage over Total, Exxon, Chevron, and BP. Shell lowered costs at its Canadian operations to ensure that they remain competitive in other regions. Shell is believed to be around longer than any other oil, gas, and energy company because of the new patents and creations they are about to be a part of in the alternative energy industry. Shell has countless projects in the future and will still be the largest and

ExxonMobil is a United States based transnational oil and gas corporation. Founded on the 30th of November 1999 after the merger between Exxon and Mobil, reuniting the original breakup of standard oil company (Folsom Jr 1998). It is the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas company by market value and as of 2016, the sixth largest in terms of revenue at $246 million per year (Decarlo 2016) . ExxonMobil’s oil and gas exploration stretches across six continents with

Exxon and Chevron are no doubt some of the leading incorporated oil companies on the globe. Exxon Corp. is the second largest oil firm after Royal Dutch Shell, it is respected for getting the biggest revenue return in 2008 which no company in the U.S. have ever reported before. According to Wilson (2009) Chevron has managed to show a lot of profitability in the market despite the decease in its oil production. It graded as one of firms which made a billion dollars profit within a week in the period of July to September 2008. Regardless of profitability trends set by the two oil firms in the U.S. market, they have been facing financial decline like the rest of the companies in other industries. The two firms are like two sailing ships which are taking longer time to sink. In the last few years, the production capacity of Chevron and Exxon has decreased and their listings on the stock market have become weak. The continuation of construction and drilling which requires billions of dollars in expense of oil production might make them experience a bigger financial crisis (Wilson, 2009).

One of the most reputable resources that Exxon Mobil has today is a strong brand name. Exxon Mobil operates all over the world and is recognized in every part of the world (Datamonitor, 2008). When people all over the world know who a company is, what they do, and where they are located, the company gains a unique competitive advantage over

This report consists of financial analysis of Exxon Mobil Corporation and it is based on the company annual report for the fiscal year ended December 31, 2006, on the company’s official documents placed at their website and on other appropriate sources. For convenience and simplicity, in this report the terms ExxonMobil, Exxon, Esso and Mobil, as well as terms like Corporation, Company, their and its, are sometimes used as abbreviated references to specific affiliates or groups of affiliates.

BP p.l.c. is an energy company with an upstream business of extracting crude oil and downstream business of providing processed energy to companies. It is listed in both the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) based in the United States of America and the London Stock Exchange (LSE). BP is based in London and they carry out oil prospecting extraction and retail its product in more than 70 countries. Out of the companies operating in the oil industry, the biggest two competitor of BP is ExxonMobil and Chevron. ExxonMobil and Chevron are chosen due to their similarities to BP and they are ranked

Though it took many years to get in British Petroleum was able to start with a selective group of stations and build from there. BP, Chevron, and ExxonMobile today make up three of the biggest in the oil industry. (Chevron Official Website)

The Pacific Oil Company a well-established oil company with an assorted diversified product line including “Vinyl Chloride Monomer (VCM)”. (Lewicki, 2010, p. 583) As one of the pioneer producers of VCM, Pacific Oil cornered the market share for contracting, distributing and selling their niche product, VCM worldwide. One of Pacific’s longtime customers was Reliant Corporation. This partnership was more than a decade old and was strong. However, if Pacific Oil decided to further diversify its product line to include Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC) a VCM derivative, “it would not want to be in the position of supplying a product competitor with the raw materials to manufacture the product line, unless the formula price was extremely