Heard rumor all this was to lean out the org and dump XTO??
15 replies (most recent on top)
XTO folk don't seem to have any interest in doing our BS forms. Fine... but BS forms are part of the gig. I like them as people, but I don't like working with them. Sigh.. this company is so flawed...
Lol those poor XTO folks, seen a disproportionate amount of them get PIP'd. I don't think they were able to keep up with our BS.
The biggest mistake made was not overpaying for XTO, the biggest mistake was continuing to throw cash into that dumpster fire of a company. We've spent more on XTO since we bought them than when we bought them.
What's done is done on XTO, it has to be written-down at some point. Rex overpaid big time. Like spoiled meat, long overdue.
EM may be taking the big write-down on XTO now to get it out of the way. That way if they do spin part of XTO off next year, EM can make big headlines on what a great divestment it just completed, without the big write-down happening then and ruining the positive news of a big cash influx.
The write-down will be treated as a "special event" and likely nothing more than a yawn from Wall Street if it's not connected to any other news. It's been an elephant in the room for years.
I think many of the mature US properties could be spun off. Retain Permian, Bakken, LaBarge and Haynesville, GOM, AK, SYU then package it as XTO. A bunch of overhead goes also. Keep a 25% to 40% shareholding interest. Package with all mature conventional and unconventional in Canada (No Heavy oil, no LNG and no East Canada offshore), spin-off with some debt into a super independent with a 25 to 40% XOM shareholding. In 1980s, we looked at such a deal structure for US mature/marginal assets, called it DOGCo. Back then we used a "barnyard" classification system (Cash Cows, Dogs, Grow, Harvest etc). DogCo could be the size of Marathon. Streamlined, efficient, focussed, while XOM retains highside profit potential
All of the XTO employees are being migrated to ExxonMobil email addresses. Most XTO employees left years ago. It is XTO in name only. Former XTO employees are waiting for EM to divest it again so they can make it profitable again.
The December 3rd press release confirms that the less strategic XTO "dry gas assets" will be sold. Perhaps this is what OP refers to as a "spin-off"
https://www.nsenergybusiness.com/news/company-news/exxonmobil-write-down-2020/
The Texas-based oil giant will remove “less strategic” dry gas assets – based across the US, Canada and Argentina – as it focuses instead on high-value projects in Guyana, Brazil and the US Permian Basin.
It says the portfolio reshuffle – which will include offloading assets in the Appalachian and Rocky Mountains, Oklahoma, Texas, Louisiana and Arkansas – will result in a fourth-quarter impairment charge of around $17bn-$20bn....
Only if an idi0t like Tillerson pays for it (again).
C'mon, there's no real separation now. XTO ceased to be autonomous 2 years ago. Reason EM keeps the XTO brand for US operations, including changing heritage Exxon and Mobil operations operators to XTO from XOM (Andrews, Hawkins...) is for PR. The treehuggers and their children hate the Exxon name and few know who XTO is. We'll keep the XTO brand for this reason alone...
Xom biggest mistake was how much they paid for XTOEnergy. I worked for Exxon ten years before becoming Xto and could tell immediately Xto was not a disciplined company. Our own management has acknowledged Xto without Xom would be cheasapeak
All of you Exxon employees stop and think about where you would be without XTO. You would be going down with all of your super projects that take 5-10 years to start producing and cost billions of dollars. XTO provided XOM with a way to produce oil and gas fast and at a decent price.
I think XTO would be fine without XOM but XOM would be in even worse shape without XTO.
Trust me, only those eligible for retirement were “voluntary”
Who would want to buy that bag of leaky wells and their operators, overpaid w—rrs with 4-fingers and mullets??
I hear that projects is going to do the same.
I work for exxon in the xto org and we only have voluntary lay offs