ExxonMobil Announces Restructuring, Emphasizes Low Carbon Solutions

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Oil and gas giant ExxonMobil announced Monday that it is restructuring its operations to enhance effectiveness, grow value, and reduce costs.

Beginning April 1, 2022, the company will be organized along three business lines – ExxonMobil Upstream Company, ExxonMobil Product Solutions, and ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions. They will be supported by a single technology organization, ExxonMobil Technology and Engineering, and other centralized service-delivery groups providing like capabilities, building on the successful consolidation of major projects across the corporation in 2019.

By combining chemical and downstream companies and centralizing technology and engineering, Exxon stated it will be better positioned to serve customers.

“Our transformed business structure enables us to more fully leverage the corporation’s scale, integration, technology advantages, and the skills and capabilities of our talented workforce,” said ExxonMobil chairman and CEO Darren Woods. He added:

“Aligning our businesses along market-focused value chains and centralizing service delivery, provides the flexibility to ensure our most capable resources are applied to the highest corporate priorities and positions us to deliver greater shareholder returns.”

The Low Carbon solutions division is targeting greenhouse gas reductions in hard-to-decarbonize sectors such as heavy industry, commercial transportation, and power generation using a combination of lower-emission fuels, hydrogen, and carbon capture and storage. Woods stated that the division has invested more than $15 billion “to accelerate accretive lower-emissions opportunities.”

The Product Solutions division will supply products, from engineering to delivery, to serve market demand and reduce greenhouse gas emissions and plastic waste. Planned actions include:

• Using lower-emissions fuels to help decarbonize commercial transportation, including the aviation and marine sectors.
• Supplying green chemical performance products to help customers reduce emissions in the agriculture, health and renewable energy sectors. 
• Manufacturing next-generation lubricants and plastics that improve the efficiency of electric and traditional vehicles
• Providing certified circular polymers to cut plastic waste by enabling advanced recycling.

Exxon is also prioritizing the development of new technologies to make emissions reductions more economical.

By integrating its technology activities through centralized management, Exxon hopes to improve its value delivery. To this end, it is consolidating its upstream operations into a single organization and relocating its corporate headquarters from Irving, Texas, to its campus north of Houston to enable closer teamwork.

Last May, Exxon investors voted for company changes in light of climate change urgency, approving three new board directors along with shifts in strategy. Since then, it has announced a number of initiatives, including construction plans for a large-scale advanced recycling facility, a commitment to net-zero operations in its Permian Basin operations, and an expansion in its biofuels interest.