Stocks A to Z / Stocks B / Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) ❤
No. of Recommendations: 13
Divergence of Exxon and BP over the last 25 years is remarkable.
BP bought Amoco in 1998 and became the third largest oil company in the world. Exxon bought Mobil in 1999. At the time of Amoco purchase, the market cap of BP and Exxon was about equal. BP’s market cap peaked in 2001. Today Exxon’s market cap is about 6 times BP’s.
Of course the Horizon oil spill was the major factor in BP’s valuation plunge. It was forced to divest many prized assets to pay damages.
But another factor has been its attempt to become a more green energy company by cutting oil and gas production and investing in green energy. This has increased debt and reduced cash for share buybacks and dividends that Exxon and other rivals have done.
No. of Recommendations: 0
But another factor ...
Yet another factor is that BP is headquartered in sclerotic Europe/UK while Exxon is not.
No. of Recommendations: 35
The difference between BP and XOM is top management.
The safety record of a company is a "canary in the coal mine" indicator of where management puts its emphasis on profitability versus safety. XOM always had a strong emphasis on safety dating back long before I joined them in 1955. This received even more attention after the Prudhoe Bay oil spill. Safety was viewed as being a good index of how much attention was being given to how work was done. Most safety problems are due to lack of attention to such details. One's safety performance became a top line in reviewing a manager's performance. It's even more so today.
In the industry, one nickname for BP was "Beyond Pathetic". It was known for taking short cuts in safety and putting the emphasis on profitability. Below are the results of a Google AI review of BP's safety performance.
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"British Petroleum (BP) has been involved in several major safety and environmental incidents, including oil spills and refinery explosions. BP has said that safety is a top priority, but some say the company has a poor safety record.
Safety incidents
2023: BP reported 100 oil spills and 39 process safety events. One contractor was fatally injured while operating a forklift, and another was seriously injured.
2010 Deepwater Horizon: The largest accidental oil spill in history, leaking about 4.9 million barrels of oil. BP was fined and penalized over $65 billion.
2005 Texas City refinery explosion: A vapor cloud explosion killed 15 workers and injured over 180. BP was fined a record amount by OSHA.
2006 Prudhoe Bay oil spill: The largest oil spill on Alaska's North Slope. BP was fined $25 million.
2006 Alaskan tundra oil spill: BP spilled 200,000 gallons of crude oil. BP paid $20 million in penalties.
Safety concerns
A leaked report found that inadequate management caused many safety incidents.
An independent analysis of the Texas City refinery explosion found issues with information management.
A leaked report found that BP trailed competitors in safety risk mitigation"
BP also had a terrible record in OSHA compliance. An ABC 2010 investigation after the Horizon blowout reported:
"OSHA statistics show BP ran up 760 "egregious, willful" safety violations, while Sunoco and Conoco-Phillips each had eight, Citgo had two and Exxon had one comparable citation."
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Recent BP management state that it has improved its focus on safety. I hope so.
Back to XOM, it's not well recognized that BP had the responsibility for combatting oil spills in Prudhoe Bay because of its 50% ownership of the Prudhoe oil field and pipeline to the shipping point. For 24 hours, almost nothing was done. People were hard to contact and containment equipment was covered with snow and ice. XOM then requested that it be permitted to take over the response and the Coast Guard agreed.
That event caused XOM to seek out safety "best practices" across all its operations and then to apply them to every operation. In one sense, that was the birth of now doing so in every aspect of the corporation's operations. This is an ongoing activity of continuous improvement. The culmination of that is now shown in how XOM has reorganized the corporation. Safety remains the top priority. The top management focus shows in the financial results as well.
How you manage safety is reflected in how you manage every aspect of your work.
That's my view of the difference in XOM and BP.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Thanks TexIrish
View on XOM at current price? Valuation still make it at FAT PITCH?
No. of Recommendations: 0
Reading now:
PRIVATE EMPIRE. ExxonMobil and American Power
Lee Raymond appears to be the primary person that emphasized extreme safety at XOM. Maybe it started with Rawl?
I just hope ultra conservative culture, hyper focused on ROCE and safety are still in place today.
If still the same old XOM>>>stock is a buy.
No. of Recommendations: 13
It pays to listen to someone like Texirish who has had a front row seat. I remember years ago a friend who worked very hard on her investments insisted BP was the best of the oil companies. My wife and I had spent our careers in the business and tried to convince her otherwise. She was convinced ExxonMobil was evil incarnate and that BP were the only good guys out there. We saw a different story than public perceived through the PR and press campaigns. My wife was an Exxon employee, my uncle was president of Mobil, and they knew they had to operate as though there was a big bulls eye on them. Whenever a safety or ethical issue arose, you knew Exxon would be singled out if they didn't toe the line and do things according to the book. When BP bought Amoco, Amoco was in a dispute for defrauding Exxon on a joint project. The attitude at Exxon was "we would never dream of that, there's no way Exxon could get away with that sort of behavior."
The Deepwater Horizon debacle was not a surprise to us. The attempts to pin some blame on Halliburton were misguided. As much as I disliked Dick Cheney, there is no doubt BP would be calling the shots, that is just the way it works between the operating company and service companies. Our friend never brought up oil investments again, and we resisted the "I told you so".
No. of Recommendations: 1
If I search there are also incidents for Exxon
1989 Exxon Valdez spill
1989 Baton Rouge refinery explosion
More recently Torrance refinery fire, Baytown refinery fire, Gravechon refinery fire.
Of course nothing on the scale of the Deepwater Horizon, but is that just random chance.
The ceo of SCE remarked that the only thing different from PGE (Camp Fire) and SCE was luck. And it looks like with the Eaton fire SCE’s luck ran out.
Does the same apply to Exxon and really any oil major?
