Exxon Raises Spending 11% Even as Rivals Reduce Costs – WSJ.com.
You have to be a WSJ subscriber to get the whole article, but believe it or not, I’m happy about something Exxon is doing.
At the very least, I think it’s somewhat safe to say that Exxon is recognizing that there is a lot of catching-up to do with small, agile companies in terms of green energy (I think that’s way too broad of a term, by the way) and technologies and is going to utilize all of those record-setting profits of the last few years (you know, when gases were at an all-time high?) to do some research.
$29 billion has to get a company somewhere…
Don’t kid yourself; Exxon isn’t changing a thing. The money’s being spent on “energy exploration and production” not research. It ‘s more dollars thrown at more of the same old same old. They don’t see the need to change because, with ever-increasing record profits, what they’re doing is working for them in the short term. There is little to no economic incentive for them to change.
Well, maybe this time I do want to kid myself just a bit. Even if one looks at a CEO of an “energy” company like Exxon in a cynical light, as one who is after just shareholder value and nothing else, then realistically even such a person should realize that the push towards new sources of energy is going to happen. Being left behind is a bad idea. Now, that doesn’t explain why the CEO’s of other companies aren’t also allocating money towards “exploration.” And I also wonder whether exploration might not be a better word than research. Unless Exxon is trying to build new, more affordable photo-voltaic cells it’s really about figuring out where to put a solar farm, for instance, then researching the technologies behind it.
Just being a bit optimistic. These days that’s not so bad.