Our balance sheet will be fine, our EBITDA/debt ratio is pretty low actually. Nobody with a financial background really should see any problem with our books. If we took on more debt and didn’t pay off what we have no it would be concerning or if it was still $30/barrel yea but we’re fine from a debt standpoint. Lots of problems with XOM. But that isn’t one of them.
As for your question “Can we sell the company to chevron?” Um no. We are worth more than chevron so that doesn’t even make sense. Merger? Not in this political climate and not with headlines about record quarters. Maybe in 5-10 years IF neither of us have any green solutions and gas becomes cheap you could swing it politically. Or more likely it would be taken as a private company so profits could be milked and investment into the future would be nil because of a declining industry.
Even if we develop green stuff this is still likely to happen with the (in the future) legacy oil and gas components while the green components stay with the XOM brand. So that XOM can say it’s 100% in the clean energy business (in 20/30 years) and not be weighed down publicly by sketchy practices with declining assets and have low multiple assets on its balance sheet.