Exxon is slashing workers and cutting costs after a historic year of loss. Here’s everything we know.
Exxon Mobil, the nation’s largest oil company, suffered a historic blow in 2020.
For the first time on record, the firm reported a loss three quarters in a row, from January through September. Analysts expect the company to report a loss in the last three months of 2020, as well, according to Bloomberg data.
The obvious culprit is the coronavirus, which sapped demand for gasoline and jet fuel, causing the price of oil to plummet. But Exxon’s market value began falling years before the pandemic, driven down in part by souring investor interest in fossil fuels.
Now down in market value about 30%, compared to a year ago, Exxon has been cutting costs. The result is big headcount reductions and other measures. Here’s everything we know so far.
Exxon was restructuring before the pandemic hit
The firm reorganized its downstream division in 2018 and the upstream division in 2019. That year, Exxon also established a new business unit — Global Projects — focused on project development.
When the price of oil crashed, Exxon said those changes helped, but further cuts would be needed.
“I wish I could say we were finished, but we are not,” Woods said in an to employees in October. “We still have some significant headwinds, more work to do and, unfortunately, further reductions are necessary.”
Today, Exxon is organized into eight trimmed-down business divisions with a president for each. It’s not clear to what extent the company’s core structure changed, if at all, in response to the spending and workforce cuts. (Exxon declined to comment on the organization chart we shared.)
We mapped out those divisions, in addition to seven other core areas of the company, in an exclusive org chart. It includes 138 of Exxon’s top employees.
Source: businessinsider.com
Read the latest issue of the OGV Energy magazine HERE.
Published: 26-01-2021
