Exxon Mobil's Management Discusses 2013 Energy Outlook Conference Call (Transcript)

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Exxon Mobil Corporation (XOM)

2013 Energy Outlook Conference Call

December 11, 2012 10:00 am ET

Executives

Sarah Ladislaw - Co-Director and Senior Fellow, Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies

Kenneth Cohen - Vice President, Public and Government Affairs

William Colton - Vice President, Corporate Strategic Planning

Analysts

Herman Franssen - Energy Intelligence Group

Guy Caruso - Center for Strategic and International Studies

Jim Landers - The Dallas Morning News

Lawrence McDonald - Private Investor

Michael Martin - Congressional Research Service

Ben Geman - The Hill

Barbara Shook - Energy Intelligence Group

Clifford Krauss - The New York Times

Gary Gentile - Platts Oilgram News

Presentation

Operator

Good day and welcome to Exxon Mobil 2013 energy outlook conference call. Today's call is being recorded. Statements made today regarding future events or conditions are forward-looking statements. Actual future results could differ due to factors posted on the investor relations section of the Exxon Mobil website.

At this time, I will turn the call over to Ms. Sarah Ladislaw. Please go ahead.

Are you connecting? Hello. Well, the other lines have gone dead now.

And you are live. Go ahead.

Sarah Ladislaw - Co-Director and Senior Fellow, Energy and National Security Program at the Center for Strategic & International Studies

Okay, great. Well, this is a wonderful whole new experiment on how man Washington energy experts are getting bit on their own play for a whole minute. But thank you for putting up with that technical difficulty. That was great.

Hi, I am Sarah Ladislaw. I am the co-director and senior fellow here at the Energy and National Security Program at the CSIS. We are absolutely delighted to once again be the host for Exxon Mobil's outlook this year for 2013. Its' not only sort of a really important strategic document for Exxon Mobil for sure, but it is certainly one of those critical inputs that we have for the public class policy debate that all of you in the room are engaged in.

We have a limited amount of time this morning. So I am going to stop talking very shortly and just introduce both, Ken Cohen, who is Vice President for Public and Government Affairs at Exxon Mobil and Bill Colton who is the Vice President for Corporate Strategic Planning for Exxon Mobil, who are going to do the bulk of today's presentation.

As many of you can tell, we have a very large audience on the phone that we will also be facilitating a conversation with when we get to Q&A. So please, I will state the ground rules early and ask then to wait for a microphone, especially if you are on the outside of the room and wait for, and please turn your microphone if you are sitting at the table and state your name and affiliation when we get to the question-and-answer period.

But, first I am going to turn it over to Ken, who is going to go ahead and introduce the outlook for this year.

Kenneth Cohen

Thank you, Sarah and hello to everybody here and again, this goes to out everyone on the phone, Bill and I are very happy that you could join us today as we give you a high level summary of our 2013 energy outlook, but before we start, some housekeeping.

Please note that the outlook contains some forward-looking statements. Actual future conditions, including economic conditions, energy demand and energy supply could differ materially due to changes in technology, the development of new energy sources, political events, demographic changes and other factors that we will discuss today and under the heading "factors affecting future results", in the investors section of our website.

The information provided includes Exxon Mobil's internal estimates and forecasts based upon internal data and analysis as well as publicly available information from external sources including the international energy agency and our law department now gives us the good housekeeping stamp of approval to proceed. So, go.

William Colton

Okay, thanks, Ken, and good morning. I am pleased to be here to share Exxon Mobil's outlook for energy which we are releasing to the public just today. For more than 50 years, this outlook has provided a window for us to the future, a view that we used to help guide our investment decisions and also for meeting, for producing the energy the world needs to meet global energy demand.

This year's outlook reveals a number of key findings about how the world will use energy, how much we will need in the future and what types of fuels will make the most sense for consumers. These are questions pondered not only by us but also by consumers and policy makers around the world.

Now, the first and most important insight is that the world runs on energy. Energy is fundamental to our way of life and our future prosperity. Energy is essential for everything from heating our homes and hospitals to fueling our cars and powering all the technologies that we depend on everyday and now considered to be necessities.

The second critical insight is that the world continues to evolve and expanding population, economically improved living standards, government policies and new technologies are all transforming the energy landscape. We are becoming more efficient and moving to cleaner fuels. At the same time, modern technology is unlocking new resources and making energy more affordable all the while creating new jobs and expanding trade around the world.

At Exxon Mobil, every single one of the 80,000 men and women who come to work everyday are focused on the needs of meeting society and consumers and we are just a small part of the technologically advanced global energy industry with millions of people working together in this mission to meet the world's energy needs. I am pleased to note, and you all are going to have a lot of time for your questions.

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