![]() ![]() The effort won the support of 11 companies, including Chevron, that released a joint statement in September 2021. The emails say Exxon executives were calling all the Houston area’s top oil and chemical companies to get them to publicly pledge their support for the carbon capture proposal. She feared that Exxon was attempting to improve its image by appearing alongside Shell, she wrote, ahead of a possible Congressional hearing where oil executives might testify.Īnother email, from Marnie Funk, a senior adviser for government relations at Shell, said that Chevron was “internally divided” on whether to join Exxon’s effort, with “Some minor unease in some Chevron quarters about Exxon reputational concerns.”įunk also said Chevron viewed Exxon’s claims about how much carbon dioxide the project could capture, and how many jobs it could create, as “inflated-but harmless inflation.”Ĭhevron and Shell declined to comment for this article. Watkins, in her August 2021 email, said “I fully support our engagement” with potential carbon capture investments in the United States, but advised steering clear of Exxon’s public announcement. The documents suggest that some within the oil industry shared these concerns, even if they supported carbon capture and storage as a climate solution. They have warned that government subsidies for the technology would be a waste of climate funding, and have argued that Exxon was using carbon capture to burnish its image, rather than drive real emissions reductions. The proposal has drawn substantial skepticism and criticism from environmental advocates, who say carbon capture is unlikely to ever reach the scale proposed by Exxon. The company said the effort could eventually prevent up to 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions every year by 2040, but would need the region’s largest corporate polluters to participate. ![]() The gas would then be compressed and sent through pipelines to wells drilled beneath the Gulf of Mexico, where it would be injected underground for permanent storage. The plan was to install equipment to remove carbon dioxide from smokestacks at the region’s largest power plants, refineries and other industrial operations before it reached the atmosphere. In April 2021, Exxon proposed a $100 billion public-private partnership to build what would become the world’s largest carbon capture and storage “hub” in Houston. “Their reputation is severely damaged here,” she wrote to colleagues in the Netherlands, where Shell was headquartered at the time, “and we will only do harm to the strength of Shell’s US reputation.” (Shell later moved its headquarters to London.) Johnson said their competitor was continuing to draw negative headlines and that “zero companies” were prepared to join an Exxon-led consortium at that time.Ī month later, Watkins said she opposed any public participation with Exxon. government relations, in a July 2021 email to Gretchen Watkins, president of Shell USA. “I am not interested in participating with any advocacy effort led by” Exxon, wrote Krista Johnson, Shell’s head of U.S. ![]() Top executives at Shell, in particular, worried that joining with Exxon would present an “unacceptable risk” to the European oil major’s reputation. Last year, Exxon struggled to gain support from its peers when it proposed a cross-industry effort to build a carbon capture and storage hub in Houston, according to documents released by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which has been investigating the oil industry. Now, newly disclosed documents confirm that the oil company’s reputational woes have extended into the industry itself and threatened to derail Exxon’s biggest climate proposal to date. ExxonMobil has been the prime target of activists and politicians angered by the oil industry’s efforts to block action on climate change.
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