U.S. foreign policy, brought to you by ExxonMobil

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 18:00:00 +0000

The greatest strategic challenge facing ExxonMobil Corp., the largest oil company in the world not owned by a state, is access to new oil reserves. Resource nationalism – the inclination of many Middle Eastern and other post-colonial governments to control their own oil – has locked the corporation out of many oil opportunities. This has led ExxonMobil to riskier political frontiers in Africa and Asia, countries where the government is too weak or corrupt to produce its own oil. Also, in these states, oil and gas production exacerbates internal conflicts and incites guerrilla armies because controlling an oil or gas field can be a ticket to sudden wealth.

When Exxon and Mobil merged in 2000, Exxon inherited a number of Mobil properties in conflict zones – in Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, and Indonesia. The latter property – a highly profitable natural gas field on Indonesia’s Sumatra peninsula – drew ExxonMobil’s executives immediately into the bloody war for independence being waged by the Free Aceh Movement, known by the initials G.A.M. ExxonMobil paid Indonesian military forces to battle G.A.M. around the perimeter of its fields; human rights investigators accused the Indonesian forces of engaging in widespread torture and abuses. G.A.M. rocketed and attacked ExxonMobil and its employees, seeing the corporation as complicit with the Indonesian military.

Salon.com > Steve Coll

U.S. foreign policy, brought to you by ExxonMobil