by Steve Coll
11. Prizes: Interview with a twenty-eight-year retired Exxon manager. “If we have a whole lot of paper cuts”: Glenn Murray, Exxon corporate safety program manager, in the Dallas Morning News, June 20, 2010.
12. Interview with former managers. Africa: “Electronic Monitoring of Driving Safety Performance,” Esso Exploration & Production Chad/Cameroon Development, Project Update no. 23, p. 23.
13. “The only way”: Fair Disclosure, transcript, ExxonMobil Corporation Analyst Meeting, March 4, 2003.
14. All quotations, “Operations Integrity Management System,” www.exxonmobil.com, examined and typed, June 24, 2010.
15. Interview with an Exxon executive.
16. Interview with Kathleen Cooper.
17. Author’s visits to Irving, Texas, 2008–2009. “God Pod” and “Death Star”: Interviews with former Exxon employees.
18. Tarbell, The History of the Standard Oil Company, p. 274.
19. Exxon’s relative size: Trial testimony of Lee Raymond, In re Exxon Valdez Oil Spill, August 25, 1994.
20. “Lots of wrong ways”: Interview with Ed Chow. “prickly as partners”: Interview with a competing executive. “Fundamentals”: Interview with Lee Raymond.
21. Interviews with two former ExxonMobil managers.
22. “You could have . . . before it stops”: Interview with an executive familiar with the New York office. $477 million: New York Times, April 2, 1989.
23. Interview with an executive who served as a director of the corporation during the Lee Raymond era.
24. Ibid.
25. Executives noticed a process analogous to natural selection: Interview with an Exxon executive. “dog eat dog”: New York Times, May 9, 1982.
26. “You don’t like them . . . in the room”: Interview with a Washington-based executive at a competing firm.
27. Fortune 500 rankings from 1996: http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/fortune500_archive/full/1996/.
28. “What you’re hearing . . . focus”: “Presentations and Q&A Session,” ExxonMobil Corporation Analyst Meeting, March 9, 2005.
29. “Exxon’s attitude . . . hope not”: Interview with a U.S.-based competing executive. “strong corporate culture”: Rockefeller family members’ press conference, April 30, 2008. “Self-referential . . . not good citizens”: Interview with Robert Monks. (BVH). “It doesn’t take you”: Interview with a former White House official.
30. “We don’t run this company . . . principles”: Interview with Fadel Gheit, a longtime energy industry analyst at the investment firm Oppenheimer & Co. “relentless pursuit of efficiency”: Forbes, April 21, 1997.
CHAPTER TWO: “IRON ASS”
1. Aircraft, flight operations: Affidavits of Patricia W. Andrews, Charles W. Cone, and James W. Johnson, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission v. ExxonMobil Corporation, 30-6-cv-1732-K, United States District Court, Northern District of Texas. Aviation Services operations, what Raymond said about Charlene: Interviews with former ExxonMobil employees.
2. Interviews with former ExxonMobil employees, California and Arizona property records.
3. Interviews with former ExxonMobil employees.
4. Interview with a party guest and Exxon employee.
5. “I can envision”: Interview with a former ExxonMobil employee.
6. “out-Rawling Rawl”: BusinessWeek, April 2, 1990.
7. “Crude oil . . . around here”: Interview with Lee Raymond.
8. Solar panels: New York Times, August 9, 1981. Clifton Garvin regretted his experiment with alternative energy: “I’ve got a backyard full of these damn collectors, and they look like hell. . . . The thing works great when the sun shines, but you’d be amazed at how much the sun’s not out around here.”
9. “Patience pills”: Interview with Peter Townsend.
10. “I don’t think Mickey”: Fair Disclosure transcript, ExxonMobil Corporation Analyst Meeting, March 4, 2003.
11. Interview with Lee Raymond.
12. Exxon Corporation, Securities and Exchange Commission, Form 10-K405, for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1997, and Form 10-K for the fiscal year ended December 31, 1973. The numbers used reflect worldwide oil liquids and liquid natural gas production. If other natural gas production were included on an oil-equivalent basis, the numbers in each year would be higher, but the basic portrait of shrinkage would remain.
13. Interview with Lee Raymond.
14. Exxon Form 10-K405, March 18, 1998; “Exxon Replaces 121% of Production in 1997,” M2 PressWire, February 5, 1998. These observations draw on Steve LeVine’s groundbreaking research into the differences between reserves reported by Exxon in 10-K filings and those reported in its annual press releases about reserve replacement.
15. As quoted in Securities and Exchange Commission RIN 3235-AK00, “Concept Release on Possible Revisions to the Disclosure Requirements to Oil and Gas Reserves,” December 12, 2007.
16. Interview with Fadel Gheit.
17. Browne, Beyond Business, p. 69.
18. Geographical distributions of proved reserves are as of December 31, 1998, as described in Securities and Exchange Commission 10-K forms filed by Exxon, Mobil, Chevron, BP, and Shell.
19. Browne, op. cit.
20. “We need to face . . . they’re done”: Transcript of Exxon-Mobil merger press conference, December 1, 1998. “Worried . . . geologically”: New York Times, November 16, 2008.
21. Browne, op. cit., p. 70.
22. “Oil Markets: The Dynamics of Structural and Financial Change,” Edward L. Morse, PowerPoint presentation, Columbia University, September 2008.
23. “Maybe we should . . . other things”: New York Times, December 2, 1998. “Guess who . . . massive anxiety”: Interview with a senior executive involved. “Could smoke . . . broken a dam”: Browne, op. cit., pp. 70–72.
24. Interview with a senior executive involved in the merger discussions.
25. Ibid.
26. International Oil Daily, May 25, 2005.
27. Financial Times, August 21, 2011.
28. Interview with a former Exxon employee involved.
29. Browne, op. cit., p. 72.
30. “the proverbial”: Washington Post, December 2, 1998. “Competition . . . changes”: Merger press conference transcript, December 1, 1998.
31. Ranked forty-fifth as an economic entity: “World Investment Report 2002: Transnational Corporations and Export Competitiveness,” United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2002, p. 104. G.D.P. figures from International Monetary Fund, World Economic Outlook database, September 2002. “economy of scale”: Interview with Lee Raymond. “It’s a great time”: BusinessWeek, April 9, 2001.
CHAPTER THREE: “IS THE EARTH REALLY WARMING?”
1. “Conversation with Lee Raymond,” Charlie Rose, PBS, May 6, 2004.
2. Center for Responsive Politics, OpenSecrets.org database.
3. Interview with an energy industry executive.
4. Interview with Joseph A. Gillan.
5. Federal disclosure filings collated by OpenSecrets.org.
6. “when they come”: Interview with an Exxon executive.
7. Interviews with individuals familiar with ExxonMobil’s lobbying.
8. From “This is what the corporation believes” to “don’t do it very well”: quotations from interviews with Republicans and oil industry officials in Washington.
9. Interview with Lee Raymond.
10. Dressler and Parson, The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change, p. 51.
11. “No reason . . . too late”: “Carbon Dioxide and Climate: A Scientific Assessment,” p. viii.
12. “Embrace the uncertainty”: Wall Street Journal, June 15, 2005. After the I.P.C.C. shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Vice President Al Gore in 2007, Exxon executives remarked sardonically that because their scientists had participated in the assessments, the corporation could now claim that it shared a Nobel for its global warming endeavors.
13. Wall Street Journal, June 15,
2005.
14. Hansen et al., “Global Climate Changes as Forecast by Goddard Institute for Space Studies Three-Dimensional Model,” August 20, 1988.
15. “IPCC Second Assessment: Climate Change 1995,” p. 5.
16. Lee Raymond, Plenary Address, Fifteenth World Petroleum Congress.
17. “eight hundred . . . anything else”: Ibid. Cooney: Deposition of Philip Cooney, U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, March 12, 2007.
18. “the most effective”: Interview with Kert Davies (BVH). “the promotion”: Cooney deposition, op. cit.
19. “Global Climate Science Communications Action Plan,” April 3, 1998. Cited in “Political Interference with Climate Change Science,” House Committee on Oversight, op. cit.
20. Greenpeace database, citing Exxon Education Foundation Dimensions 1998 report and the ExxonMobil Foundation’s Internal Revenue Service filing for 2000.
21. All shareholder meeting quotations: “Excerpts from the May 31, 2000, ExxonMobil Annual General Meeting,” transcript produced by Campaign ExxonMobil. “If the data were compelling . . . No?”: “A Conversation with Lee Raymond,” op. cit., November 8, 2005.
22. All George W. Bush quotations from transcripts of the presidential debate at Wake Forest University, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, October 11, 2000.
23. Interview with Artistides Patrinos.
24. Ibid.
25. Haley Barbour memo first reported in the Los Angeles Times, August 26, 2001. Christine Todd Whitman and Paul O’Neill: Suskind, The Price of Loyalty, p. 123.
26. Randy Randol memo released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request made by nongovernmental organizations.
CHAPTER FOUR: “DO YOU REALLY WANT US AS AN ENEMY?”
1. “So must ExxonMobil” and “very close to closing down”: Jakarta to Washington, March 7, 2001. The author obtained this and other State Department cables and documents cited in this chapter, except where otherwise noted, through a Freedom of Information Act request.
2. About a fifth of worldwide upstream revenue: Estimate derived from interviews with analysts and ExxonMobil’s investor information department. Profits in 1998, 1999, and 2000: ExxonMobil’s estimates provided in discovery, cited in Plaintiff’s Memorandum, July 18, 2008, John Doe I et al. v. ExxonMobil Corporation et al., 01-1357 (LFO) United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Government of Indonesia’s take was $1.2 billion: Jakarta to Washington, March 12, 2001. Indonesia’s oil and gas revenue was about $5 billion; its government revenue before International Monetary Fund loans and other international aid was about $19 billion.
3. “A quixotic . . . exaggeration” and “circulating . . . diplomacy”: William Nessen, “Sentiments Made Visible: The Rise and Reason of Aceh’s National Liberation Movement,” in Reid, Verandah of Violence.
4. Lost contract to Bechtel: Kristen E. Schulze, “Insurgency and the Counter-Insurgency: Strategy in the Aceh Conflict, October 1976–May 2004,” in Reid, ibid. Doral Inc.: Interview with Nezar Patria. “lived long enough” and “mid-life crisis”: Nessen, in Reid, op. cit.
5. Declaration of independence: Nezar Patria, “Islam and Nationalism in the Free Aceh Movement, 1976–2005,” International History Department, London School of Economics. “foreign oil companies . . . immediately”: Schulze, in Reid, op. cit. “They have Mobil Oil . . . support us”: Interview with Nezar Patria.
6. Jakarta to Washington, March 12, 2001.
7. Ransom of $100,000, “heightened concern”: Jakarta to Washington, March 7, 2001. Newspaper advertisement proposal, “not advisable”: Jakarta to Washington, February 23, 2001.
8. Jakarta to Washington, March 9, 2001.
9. Interview with Robert Gelbard (HC).
10. “We’ll know it”: Jakarta to Washington, March 14, 2001.
11. Jakarta to Washington, March 8, 2001.
12. Interview with Ifdhal Kasim.
13. BusinessWeek, December 28, 1998.
14. Ibid.
15. “confusion and ambivalence”: Interview with Agus Widjojo.
16. State Department findings: 2000 Country Reports on Human Rights, www.state.gov/g/drl/rls/hrrpt/2000/eap/707.htm. “The companies . . . dilemma in Aceh”: Jakarta to Washington, July 7, 1999, obtained by the author from a source.
17. Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights: www.state.gov.www/global/human_rights/001220_fsdrl_principles.html.
18. “They just didn’t see the relevance”: Interview with Arvind Ganesan. “We don’t sign on”: Interview with an ExxonMobil executive.
19. All quotations from ExxonMobil internal documents from excerpts cited in Memorandum & Opinion, August 27, 2008, and Plaintiff’s Memorandum, July 18, 2008, John Doe I v. ExxonMobil, op. cit.
20. Plaintiff’s Memorandum, ibid.
21. Interviews with individuals familiar with ExxonMobil’s Global Security department. Also, declarations of Ron Wilson, John Alan Connor, Michael Farmer, Robert Haines, and Lance Johnson, John Doe I v. ExxonMobil, op. cit.
22. “nothing as dramatic,” “physical safety”: Interview with an individual involved with the issues in Aceh. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act dilemma and reviews: Interview with another individual involved.
23. Memorandum & Opinion, op. cit.
24. “Ludicrous”: Interview with an individual involved. “deployment . . . security affairs”: Memorandum & Opinion, op. cit.
25. Mike Farmer: Excerpts from his deposition, Memorandum & Opinion, ibid. Document quotations: Ibid., and the Plaintiff’s Memorandum, op. cit.
26. “Such a formal move”: Abuja to Washington, August 12, 2003 (W). Other quotations from interviews with two individuals involved.
27. All quotations from Colin Powell-Alwi Shihab meeting: Secretary of state to Jakarta, March 16, 2001.
28. Robert Haines, Karen Brooks, and Skip Boyce: Interviews with individuals familiar with the discussions. All quotations from Ron Wilson-Luhut Pandjaitan meeting: Jakarta to Washington, March 19, 2001.
29. Interview with Robert Gelbard (HC).
30. All quotations from the Banda Aceh meeting: Jakarta to Washington, April 12, 2001.
31. “seemed to support . . . burials”: Interview with Nordin Abdul Rahman. “ExxonMobil land . . . unacceptable”: Interview with Munawar Zainal.
32. Interview with Robert Gelbard (HC).
33. All quotations from Skip Boyce’s meetings in Banda Aceh: Jakarta to Washington, April 26, 2001.
34. Stockholm to Washington, June 11, 2001.
35. Jakarta to Washington, June 19, 2001.
36. Jakarta to Washington, August 23, 2001.
37. Jakarta to Washington, July 11, 2001.
38. Interview with Terry Collingsworth (BVH).
39. Complaint, John Doe I v. ExxonMobil, op. cit.
CHAPTER FIVE: “UNKNOWN INJURY”
1. Interview with Mandy Lindeberg. Design of Lindeberg’s study: “Estimate of Oil Persisting on the Beaches of Prince William Sound 12 Years After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” Environmental Science and Technology, 2004.
2. Interviews with Auke Bay scientists and ExxonMobil consultant David Page (MR).
3. Agreement and Consent Decree, October 9, 1991. State of Alaska v. Exxon Corporation, and United States of America v. Exxon Corporation, A91-082 CIV and A91-083 CIV.
4. Interview with Jeffrey Short.
5. Ibid. See also, “Petroleum Hydrocarbons in Caged Mussels Deployed in Prince William Sound After the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill,” American Fisheries Society Symposium, 1996.
6. Salmon study: “Sensitivity of Fish Embryos to Weathered Crude Oil: Part II. Increased Mortality of Pink Salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) Embryos Incubating Downstream from Weathered Exxon Valdez Oil,” Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry, 1999. Damage to fish hearts, future research, single-generation effects: Interviews with Jeffrey Short and Stanley “Jeep” Rice. Financial damages: Interview with Craig Tillery, deputy attorney general, state of Alaska (M
R).
7. All quotations, interview with Jeffrey Short.
8. Ibid.
9. “PCB Exposure in Sea Otters and Harlequin Ducks in Relation to History of Contamination by the Exxon Valdez Spill,” Marine Pollution Bulletin, June 2010. Interview with Jeep Rice.
10. Interviews with Peter Hagen, Jeffrey Short, Jeep Rice, and Mandy Lindeberg.