The chief executives of Exxon Mobil Corp. and Chevron Corp. spoke last year about combining the oil giants, according to people familiar with the talks, testing the waters for what could be one of the largest corporate mergers ever.
Chevron Chief Executive Mike Wirth and Exxon CEO Darren Woods spoke shortly after the coronavirus pandemic took hold, decimating oil and gas demand and putting enormous financial strain on both companies, the people said. The discussions were described as preliminary and aren’t ongoing but could come back in the future, the people said.
Such a deal would reunite the two largest descendants of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil monopoly, which was broken up by U.S. regulators in 1911, and reshape the oil industry. A combined company’s market value could top $350 billion. Exxon has a market value of $190 billion, while Chevron’s is $164 billion. Together, they would likely form the world’s second largest oil company by market capitalization and production, producing about 7 million barrels of oil and gas a day, based on pre-pandemic levels, second only in both measures to Saudi Aramco.
But a merger of the two largest American oil companies could encounter regulatory and antitrust challenges under the Biden administration. President Biden has saidthe country faces. In October, he said he would push the country to “transition away from the oil industry.” He hasn’t been as vocal about antitrust matters, and the administration has yet to nominate the Justice Department’s head of that division.
Standard Oil of United States!
Guess Mobil has been swallowed into Exxon. Will it be exxonmobilchevron, or just Exron (since there is already an Enron!)
T.R. is turning over in his grave hearing that Standard Oil could reunite.
Think bigger
Not what we need. Hope this isn't allowed to happen.
Two wrongs does not make it right. In business context, this merger will not yield 1 + 1 = 3
How about “Standard Enron”?
Suena perron. Sounds great. I need to buy stocks.
Now that would be interesting
👀
CamCulv
And the benefit to everyday people in the countries they operate in will be....?
They should build a Death Star
Big Oil shorted itself GME
Exxron
Chevron buys Exxon....
'say people familiar with talks' -- Seen it too much these last couple of days! MachineLearning
And you think Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Apple have monopolies? This one would make all of those pale in comparison, and watch out world... well, watch out countries with oil.
schwartzbCNBC Yes why not bring back Standard Oil!
As long as they are committed to Going Green together 💚
crudegusher sound familiar?
They’re just going to call it Standard Oil, and quit fooling around.
“ExChev” to save the paper spelling out ExxonMobilChevronTexaco
Moar!
I’m going green. Tell them to kissmygoldenbrownass
They need to fuck off and start using their billions to create solar, wind, wave tech & stop killing the planet for a few quid. The time has come.
Not sure on regulatory approval. But wow.
good luck
Didn’t we correct that problem about 120 years ago?
Sounds a bit crude to me.
I still won’t put my money in oil
That will be one hell of a giant slick.