strengthening global energy security

Remarks by Rex W. Tillerson
Chairman and CEO, Exxon Mobil Corporation
Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars
Washington, D.C.
January 8, 2009

Condensed version, full speech is here:

http://www.exxonmobil.com/Corporate/...


The energy industry is a long-term enterprise, and decisions made today can have consequences for years to come. While elected officials understandably tend to think in terms of two, four or six years, based on election cycles, energy companies must necessarily think in terms of two, four and six decades, consistent with the lifecycle of our resource-development projects.

Even in the midst of our current economic downturn, which includes a return to more historic levels of crude oil prices, my company remains committed to investing in projects and technologies to meet tomorrow’s needs. Our business model is based on rigorous and realistic long-term planning. We try to look through near-term events. As part of this planning, we work to recognize risk factors that we know about today and can manage with the acknowledgement that there will be unforeseen risk factors that we will also have to manage in the future.

Developing all our energy resources, though, will also require us to find and produce more oil and natural gas. Fossil fuels currently provide the vast majority of the world’s energy — and due to their availability, their affordability and their versatility, they will continue to do so in the years to come. Oil and natural gas alone will supply nearly 60 percent of the world’s energy needs through 2030.

Technology advances have not stood still in the petroleum industry. We have the technology to explore for, develop, produce, and transport to consumers the energy from these domestic reserves — safely, reliably, and responsibly — just as we are in countries the world over.

For example, a technology recently developed by ExxonMobil has made it economically possible to produce natural gas “trapped” in extremely tight rock formations far below the earth’s surface. In Colorado, the amount of gas from one field alone will be enough to heat 50 million U.S. homes for the next decade.

By increasing the availability and affordability of natural gas here at home and elsewhere in the world, we diversify the world’s energy portfolio and we strengthen global energy security. Increased natural gas production is especially helpful in meeting the enormous demand for power generation.

In the years ahead, access to energy resources around the world will affect America’s energy security.

We will need international cooperation and free trade to ensure we can bring the energy industry’s know-how, financial strength, and innovative technologies to the task of accessing energy resources in hard-to-reach places — regardless of borders or barriers.