Perhaps no company has been humbled as profoundly by recent events as ExxonMobil, which missed the shale boom, overspent on projects and saw its debt rise to $50 billion as its stock plummeted, Bloomberg reports in an in-depth feature detailing the struggles of the company—one of Baton Rouge’s largest employers.
The oil business is all about how much you produce, how low you get your costs and how well you capture resources for the future. ExxonMobil produces about 4 million barrels a day—essentially the same as 10 years ago, despite repeated vows to push the number higher. Meanwhile, its profit last year was a bit more than half what it was a decade ago.
Once the undisputed king of Wall Street, ExxonMobil today is worth less than Home Depot, which has less than half the revenue.
For four decades ExxonMobil has plowed ahead, keeping its share price steady, financial returns healthy and dividend rising through wars and recessions and Democratic and Republican administrations. Now the world will see how well the company can survive a pandemic, and whether it can thrive in the aftermath. Read the full feature.
