TRUE Private Wealth Advisors acquired a new position in shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. during the fourth quarter valued at approximately $1,140,000.
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The company’s outside auditors, PriceWaterhouse, are also being questioned, and the SEC has been receiving information provided by Exxon to New York’s attorney general as well, the Journal reported.
The SEC declined to comment on the report, and Exxon did not immediately return a request for comment.
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and other states including MA have been conducting similar probes since a year ago. Exxon is the only major US producer that hasn’t taken a write down or impairment since oil prices plunged two years ago.
The formal investigation is examining Exxon’s longstanding practice of not writing down the value of its oil and gas reserves when prices fall.
When the price of oil plunges, as it has in the past two years, all of the largest oil companies in the world write down their losses.
But ultimately, the most important risk of all to a fossil fuel giant like Exxon is the risk that its main product, petroleum, will go the way of whale oil, leaving the company’s assets stranded.
Exxon confirmed in November that it received a subpoena from Schneiderman’s office for documents “relating to climate change”. The company first began including statements about business risks associated with climate change in its SEC filings in 2007.
Historically, investigations by New York’s attorney general have prodded the SEC to act.
Exxon has previously said it spent $135 million on cleanup and fix work. The company has spent much of this year confronting investigations by Mr. Schneiderman and other Democratic state attorneys general.
Exxon has also ardently defended its record of climate research against critics, as well as its view the use of fossil fuels will grow in coming decades, which corresponds to the predictions of major global energy forecasters.
The SEC probe is a significant escalation of climate change-related inquiries into Exxon, as well as a new front in SEC’s efforts to ensure that publicly traded companies make certain climate-related disclosures to investors.
“Millions of people around the globe have long demanded action to hold Exxon accountable”, said Corporate Accountability International senior international organizer Katherine Sawyer.
Some investors and activists, meanwhile, cited what they saw as Exxon’s insularity, and its refusal to face up to potential threats to its future value, as a potential rationale for the SEC.
When such a theoretical price for carbon is low, more oil and gas wells would be commercially viable. Bank of America Corp. lowered shares of Exxon Mobil Corp. from a buy rating to a neutral rating and set a $96.00 target price for the company.in a report on Thursday, June 2nd. The GOP congressman slammed the SEC investigation as a way to prop up the state inquiries.
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The SEC’s probe is reportedly looking into how Exxon calculates the potential business impacts of climate change, including how it calculates the potential costs of complying with future climate regulations and how those costs affect asset values.
