Others do it, When Will ExxonMobil go Green?

May 14, 2006 – Vol.11 No.8

OTHERS DO IT, WHEN WILL EXXONMOBIL GO GREEN?

Under the leadership of Chairman Lee Raymond, ExxonMobil was steadfastly against renewable energy. Now he’s gone with his $400 million parting gift. How soon will the world’s most profitable publicly traded company follow Shell, BP and Chevron in investing in renewables, alternative and efficient energies?

Pension fund trustees from six states, New York City and eight other institutional investors with more than half a trillion dollars in assets held a phone-based news conference on May 18 to discuss their request for a face-to-face meeting with the ExxonMobil board. They want to know why the company refuses to develop a strategy for alternatives to oil.

Certainly ExxonMobil board members have been reading the news. Major corporations are going green. These stories alone should have caught their attention:

--- MuniMae, the largest sponsor of affordable housing tax credit equity investments in the US with managed assets more than $16 billion, announced on May 16 that they had acquired Renewable Ventures LLC, a third party financier and operator of renewable energy generation facilities. The new company, MMA Renewable Ventures, will provide third party finance solutions for renewable projects throughout North America with an initial focus on solar projects. Other technologies - wind, bioenergy and geothermal energy - will also be considered.

--- Honda announced on May 16 that it would expand production in the US and Canada and return to its roots of building fuel efficient cars: A new, more affordable, dedicated hybrid will be introduced in the US and Canada in 2009. New clean diesel engines will be introduced for vehicles sold in the US and Canada within the next three years. And overall, the company has established a goal to increase American Honda’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) by five percent over 2005 levels by 2010.

--- General Electric announced on May 17 that revenues from the sale of energy efficient and environmentally advanced products and services reached $10.1 billion in 2005 up from $6.2 billion in 2004. Orders for yet to be delivered green products and services reached $17 in 2005, nearly double 2004. The company has outlined its green progress in its first Ecomagination report: Taking on Big Challenges.

No one outside of ExxonMobil knows the words spoken and management decisions made behind closed doors at the company, but possibly ExxonMobil HAS read the news and is already taking baby steps to make itself greener:

--- On May 16 ExxonMobil announced it had joined the US Environmental Protection Agency’s SmartWay Transport(R) Partnership. In the voluntary program the company will take measures to reduce fuel consumption in its fleet of fuel delivery tankers.

--- On May 17 ExxonMobil Chemical and its Japanese affiliate Tonen Chemical announced that they would present a technical white paper “Battery Separators for HEV Applications” at the International Advanced Automotive Battery and Ultracapacitor Conference being held in Baltimore, Maryland.

The paper outlines how their new microporous film can make the next generation of lithium ion batteries for hybrid vehicles lighter and smaller. With significantly improved fuel economy hybrid vehicles, with widespread acceptance (vehicle unit sales in the 10’s of millions), could reduce demand for ExxonMobil’s primary profit maker - gasoline.

Baby steps, certainly. But the company’s new chief Rex W.Tillerson is just settling in to his new office. He has already admitted that the days of easy oil are over and the company will continue to explore new energy technologies.

Visit MuniMae at http://www.munimae.com/ , Renewable Ventures at http://www.renewableventures.com/ , Honda at http://www.hondanews.com/ , GE Ecomagination annual report at http://www.ge.com/ecoreport/ , the EPA’s Smartway program at http://www.epa.gov/smartway and ExxonMobil at http://www.exxonmobil.com/