Exxon's bad reputation got in the way of its industry-wide carbon capture proposal

Enlarge / Environmental activists rally for fossil fuel corporate accountability in New York Supreme Court on October 22, 2019. October 22, 2019 in New York City. Drew Angerer/Getty Images

ExxonMobil has been a primary target of activists and politicians angered by the oil industry's efforts to block action on climate change. Now, newly leaked documents confirm that the oil company's reputational issues have spilled over into the industry itself and threatened to derail Exxon's biggest climate proposal yet.

Last year, Exxon struggled to garner support from its peers when it proposed a cross-industry effort to build a carbon capture and storage center in Houston, according to documents released by the House Committee on Oversight and Reform, which investigated the oil industry. Shell's top executives, in particular, feared that a tie-up with Exxon posed "unacceptable risk" to the European oil major's reputation.

“I am not interested in participating in an advocacy effort led by” Exxon, Krista Johnson, Shell’s head of US government relations, wrote in a July 2021 email to Gretchen Watkins, chairman of Shell. ShellUSA. Johnson said his competitor continued to make negative headlines and that "zero business" was ready to join an Exxon-led consortium at that time.

A month later, Watkins said she opposed any public involvement with Exxon. "Their reputation is badly damaged here," she wrote to colleagues in the Netherlands, where Shell was headquartered at the time, "and we will only damage the strength of Shell's American reputation. ". (Shell later moved its headquarters to London.)

In April 2021, Exxon proposed a $100 billion public-private partnership to build what would become the world's largest carbon capture and storage hub in Houston. The plan was to install equipment to remove carbon dioxide from the smokestacks of the region's largest power plants, refineries and other industrial operations before it reaches the atmosphere. The gas would then be compressed and sent through pipelines to wells drilled under the Gulf of Mexico, where it would be injected underground for permanent storage. The company said this effort could potentially prevent up to 100 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions each year by 2040, but would require the region's biggest polluters to participate.

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The proposal has drawn substantial skepticism and criticism from environmental advocates, who say carbon capture is unlikely ever to reach the scale proposed by Exxon. They warned that government subsidies for technology would be a waste of climate finance and argued that Exxon was using carbon capture to boost its image, rather than drive real emissions reductions.

The documents suggest that some in the oil industry share these concerns, even as they support carbon capture and storage as a climate solution.

Watkins, in his August 2021 email, said "I fully support our engagement" with potential carbon capture investments in the United States, but advised avoiding public announcement of Exxon. She worried that Exxon was trying to improve its image by appearing alongside Shell, she wrote, ahead of a possible congressional hearing where oil executives could testify.

Another email, from Marnie Funk, senior government relations adviser at Shell, said Chevron was "internally divided" on whether to join Exxon's effort, with "some minor unease in parts of Chevron over Exxon's reputational issues.< /p>

Funk also said Chevron viewed Exxon's claims about how much carbon dioxide the project could capture and how many jobs it could create as "inflated, but harmless, inflation."

Chevron and Shell declined to comment for this article.

The emails indicate that Exxon executives were calling all major oil and chemical companies in the Houston area to get the...