Thread regarding ExxonMobil Corp. layoffs

Gluts have given EM access to a lot of cheap feedstock and large profits capitalizing on the weaker position of smaller competitors combined with EM's integrated model, it is a classic Standard Oil maneuver.
What EM calls advantaged feedstocks LOL
I believe the 1 million barrel tight shale oil investment was done for the same reason. To create a local glut and acquiring everyone else's feedstocks for ultra low price. Because understand this, no one ever made any decent money in shale oil, EVERYONE knows that and Scott Sheffield acknowledged it publicly that cash flows in shale oil have been negative for majority of companies for a decade. I believe EM just believes that if these shale producers don't use their common sense, then they deserve to be bankrupted by taking their production at suppressed prices.
That is because even a 1-2% regional production surplus will crash the oil price 30-50 percent in a generally inelastic market giving EM access to all this cheap feedstock.

So the macro picture is for Exxon to capture the higher down stream margins in the US through cheap bitumen feedstock and screw Imperial's 30% minority shareholders??

Great strategy and its reflected in the stock price and company's market capitalization.

Numbers quoted completely wrong. Not even close the production costs I have seen!!!!

Kearl asset return is the MICRO not MACRO picture.
Kearl has a pretty decent cost of production once we take into account that the difference in currency differentials between CAD and USD.
Kearl and Cold Lake enables EM to glut the local alberta market with bitumen, that is the MACRO pic, and then buy very low cost bitumen from competitors for a fraction of their production costs which EM loves and then make profit using the downstream assets, in effect subsidizing the downstream production with cheap feedstock.
In a high crude price environment which is guaranteed in the future considering that many upstream producers are going bankrupt and financiers haven't been willing to lend them money to drill more shale wells for some time now, Kearl/ Cold Lake assets will continue to provide cheap feedstock for the refineries when the price spikes creating profits. Kearl will continue producing for a long time to come.

EM has struggled because of its financials, a high dividend when cash flow is low, share buybacks when the stock price was at the peak instead of diluting the shares like Tesla just did to raise capital and buying back the stocks in depressed market conditions like we have right now or Chevron is doing by buying out Noble. EM used to be successful because it understood acquisition of low price assets like Mobil during downturns, a counter cyclical strategy.

The macro picture re. Kearl is
not entirely encouraging. Project design and engineering had major flaws resulting in massive cost overruns. Repeated reliability issues caused massive capital spending to fix the Achilles tendons.

The returns on capital employed are negative - further exacerbated in a low price environment.

Kearl is not that much of a tragedy as most people seem to think.
Their production costs I understand are in ~CAD25 (close to $19US) which is not particularly bad if not the best and Cold Lake is close to CAD$15.
Sure Kearl is not a resounding success but it is not a catastrophe either, no one was sure about shale at that time and it is still very expensive.
Kearl has the additional benefit of being ramped up and down when necessary like a mining factory and gives EM/ IOL to create artificial gluts in the local market enabling them to buy raw crude from bleeding competitors for a fraction of the extraction cost.
Those heavy oil assets guarantee a low cost feedstock for downstream assets that all of EM can acquire for its refineries.
There is a strategic macro picture here that seems to be missed for some reason.

Uneasy is the head that wears the crown. These a$$ kissing, eager to please, suppine executives got caught up in the turf war while doing a prized stint at the mothership.

Bruised and battered with their careers in tatters, these damaged goods were forced to retire when back home to protect their final average earnings for pension purposes.

After all there is another saying, an obedient soldier who follows orders, usually goes on to retire a General.

No one remembers them favorably.

Some good people in IOL, but EM dumped some senior execs there who had fallen from grace back at the mothership. Leadership gaps and poor decisions still haunt IOL today. A shame, but dumping fallen execs in Affiliate offices is not uncommon at EM. Out of sight, out of mind, but whomever sponsors them is typically able to save and hide them until they really mess up again. Very few are ever actually kicked completely out of the club.

While the company has surely seen better days, all is not lost. There are many highly skilled, dedicated and loyal employees whose careers were eclipsed by sycophants and brown nosers.

A major re-organization is an imperative with hundreds of redundant, non-value added positions being axed.

It is a fact though, Imperial has been overtaken by Suncor and Canadian Natural Resources as
Canada's no. 1 and 2 O&G respectively. Its reputation has taken a beaten and it clearly does not attract the best talent.

Hired anyone with a pulse the last 5 years - Zero cost control. Now they have to deal with all of the poor souls who thought they’d have a long career with this once great company.

Here’s some more of the story. Standard Oil Co. of Indiana became Amoco and then bought by BP. Since the Indiana version was a different company they had the rights in 15 states to the Esso brand. There was an injunction in 1938 to stop SO of New Jersey from using the Esso brand in those 15 states.

https://www.cspdailynews.com/company-news/return-esso-gasoline

@dep - the story I was told was that the use of any branding related to Standard Oil (S.O. = "Esso") was restricted to the states in which the 1911 anti-trust legislation allowed them to operate. So the board of Standard Oil of New Jersey contracted a branding consultant to come up with suggestions vetted by focus groups, law, etc. Eventually the new name was chosen and registered in 1972: "Exxon", at an estimated cost of 50 million (1972) US dollars.

Nice history.

We used to have Esso in the US when I was a kid (late 60's, early 70's).

Then, it changed to Exxon. What's the history of that?