By Meagan Clark - Texas-based oil and gas giant Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) reported 2013 earnings of $32.6 billion, a 17.2 percent return on average capital and $47.6 billion in generated cash flow from operations and asset sales on Wednesday. The earnings were down $12.3 billion compared to 2012.
Exxon employs 75,000 people around the world, and has a market capitalization of more than $392 billion, about three billion less than Google Inc. (Nasdaq: GOOG).
Exxon Chairman and CEO Rex Tillerson spoke to analysts at an annual meeting Wednesday. Here are some highlights, pulled from his full remarks:
“The decrease of $12.3 billion compared to 2012 largely reflects lower net gains from divestments of $8.6 billion and lower earnings in our upstream and downstream segments which is in line with the industry conditions.”
“ExxonMobil’s upstream earnings per barrel were $18.3 in 2013 an average $17.26 over the last five years… one of our ongoing priorities is to improve unit profitability.”
“For the 20th consecutive year, we added more oil and natural gas reserves than we produced, with our proved reserve replacement ratio exceeding 100 percent.”
“In 2013, we had improved oil and gas reserves totaling 1.6 billion oil equivalent barrels of which nearly 76 percent are liquids. At yearend 2013, proved reserves totaled 25.2 billion oil equivalent barrels comprised of 53 percent liquids and 47 percent natural gas.”
“Over the past five years, ExxonMobil generated $104 billion of free cash flow. This is more than two times the average of our competitors during a period of relatively high upstream capital intensity for the industry as a whole.”
“ExxonMobil has generated greater shareholder returns than the broader market and greater returns than the average of our competitors over the last 10 and 20 year periods. Over the last decade, the S&P annualized return was 7 percent versus ExxonMobil’s annualized return of 12 percent.”
“By the year 2014, the world’s population is likely to increase by about 2 billion people with also projected economic output will be up about 130 percent versus the year 2010. And current with these changes ExxonMobil’s 2014 outlook for energy shows that global energy demand is likely to grow by about 35%... We do anticipate a gradual shift in the global energy mix. Oil demand will remain most prominent with about two thirds of its increase driven by expanding transportation needs. The use of natural gas will rise by about 65 percent and it will become the second most widely used source of energy surpassing coal.”
“We have implemented rigorous environmental management programs that deliver ongoing improvements in our global environmental performance. The results of our actions are significant particularly in the area of energy efficiency where our worldwide refining and chemical operations have further improved energy efficiency by 10 percent since the year 2002.”
“We also continued to progress initiatives to reduce hydrocarbon flaring, which have resulted in a further 20 percent decrease since 2009 bringing our efforts over the past 10 years to a total reduction of 50 percent.”
“Going forward, we expect to invest just under $40 billion in 2014 in an average less than $37 billion per year from 2015 to ‘17 excluding potential acquisitions.”