ASM 2018

May 30, 2018

Good morning. Good morning, everybody. Can I ask that you please take your seats, please? It's nice to see everyone. Thank you for coming. I'd like to bring our meeting to order. I'm Darren Woods, Chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil, and I'm very pleased to welcome all of you this morning, including our shareholders who are participating via the Internet. For those of you who are with us this morning, I hope you've had a chance to speak to some of our employees out front on some of the booths. In fact, let me just take a moment. I'd like to ask all of our employees to please stand. You beat me to it. These men and women are among the 70,000 people around the world who are working for all of you. And I think recognizing with a warm round of applause was very appropriate. So thank you for that. The results that I will share with you today are their results. And I can tell you, I'm very privileged to represent them and to speak on their behalf. Next to me is Jeff Woodbury, the Vice President of Investor Relations and the Corporate Secretary. Jeff will help run our meeting this morning. And before I turn it over to Jeff, I'd like to provide an outline of today's proceedings, including how to be recognized. He will also outline the proposals to be covered and the process for voting on them. He'll then confirm that there's a quorum, which allows me to begin the business of the meeting. I'm going to start with an overview of ExxonMobil's work, our business plans and our vision for the future. Next, I'll cover the items of business closed. The formal business of the meeting will conclude. And then the Inspectors of Election will provide the preliminary voting results regarding our business. Following this discussion, I'll close the meeting with a few remarks. So at this time, let me turn the meeting over to Jeff. Thank you, Darren. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I would first like to take this opportunity to familiarize everyone with the safety features of the auditorium. In case of an emergency, we will be notified through the public address system. Emergency exits for the ground level as shown on the screen behind me are situated at the rear of the auditorium where you entered and down in front on either side. If we need to evacuate, please proceed to the nearest exit and the Meyerson personnel will guide you to the best way out. In addition, for safety reasons, we ask that you do not block the exits. To ensure that the meeting is productive and conducted in the interest of all shareholders, there are certain guidelines governing this event. In the program, you'll find the rules of conduct to ensure the participants. Disruptions of a speaker or the Chairman are not permitted and will be viewed as intentional interference with the meeting. Only shareholders as of the record date or their properly appointed proxies will be entitled to speak during the meeting. The laws of New Jersey where ExxonMobil is incorporated provide that no business can be brought up for a vote unless proper notice has been given to all shareholders. Therefore, in the fairness to other shareholders not in attendance and in keeping with the laws that govern our Annual Meeting, formal business at today's meeting is restricted to other items included in this year's proxy statement. The admissions desk in the lobby and verified that you are the proponent or a duly authorized proxy under New Jersey law. Presenters whose credentials have been verified will be given a blue presenters pass. If neither the proponent nor the authorized proxy has checked in, we will presume the proponent is not present, and I will move the proposal for the purposes of the orderly conduct of the meeting and so that the shareholder votes cast may be recorded. However, I will not be acting as a representative of the proponent to present the proposal while the ASHRA holds the microphone. Time may not be shared with another speaker and no second to the motion is required. Now during the discussion period, if you wish to make comments, please fill out a speaker identification card that is included in your program provided to you as you enter the lobby. This card confirms that you meet the requirements to speak at this meeting. Move to a reserved aisle seat, remain seated and raise your hand holding your speaker identification card to indicate that you wish to speak. When recognized, give your completed speaker card to the usher. Please stand and begin by stating your name with the microphone. We request that individual shareholders respect the rights of others to speak and please keep your comments brief. We ask that matters of personal interest not relevant to all shareholders be due to the need to conclude the meeting within a reasonable period, we cannot assure that every shareholder who wishes to speak will be able to do so. As we have done in the past, we have provided a timing system with lights that will help speakers manage their time. I would now like to demonstrate the system. When a speaker is recognized and an usher has arrived with a microphone, a green light will come on at the displays phones will be activated only after the speaker has been recognized. When the speaker's time remaining reaches 30 seconds, a yellow light will turn on. A red light will indicate that the speakers at the end of the time allowed. And at that point, we ask that you conclude your comments. As we typically note at the outset of similar remarks, this statement contains information regarding today's presentation and discussion. You may also refer to our corporate website as well as supplemental information defining key terms that we'll use throughout the meeting today. This morning, There are 7 items of business. We'll begin with the 3 Board proposals regarding the election of directors, ratification of independent auditors and an advisory vote to approve executive for shareholder proposals shown on the proxy statement. Proponents of shareholder proposals or their authorized proxy will introduce their proposal. It's a policy of the corporation to provide confidential voting to shareholders. If you didn't include comments on your vote, your proxy card hasn't been seen by the company. Anyone wishing to vote in secret at this meeting can obtain an envelope from the ushers. Proxy cards will be collected a list of shareholders entitled to vote is available for your inspection. If anybody wishes to examine this list, an usher will do it. The company of Computershare Trust has been pointed the Inspector of Election for this meeting. She has taken an oath of notice of this meeting has been properly given. The Inspector of Election has determined that a quorum is present. There are 3,600,000,000 shares represented at this meeting that equates to our proxy. So now I'll turn the meeting back to the Chairman. Thank you. Thank you, Jeff. I direct the determined number of shares entitled to vote be filed with the minutes. I declare a quorum present and the meeting ready for business. I want to take some time to share some personal reflections. This is my 2nd annual meeting as Chairman, but my first employees, world leaders and many others. People with a wide range of views on issues and aspirations. I made it to Antwerp and Rotterdam to see our new expansions to Guyana who were making exciting deepwater discoveries to the Gulf Coast to thank the many heroes who helped with the hurricane recovery. All these trips and varied experiences left me with one feeling, a very deep sense of pride. Incredible work, creating the energy and making the products that improve the lives of 1,000,000,000. This is more than just a company committed to making the world better. And I can tell you I'm very proud to be part of it. And I hope that some of you take pride in being part of it. They're working very hard to develop opportunities and get the most out of our businesses. We're focused on the fundamentals and on leveraging our competitive advantages to grow shareholder value. We're committed to this. We're all and other pressing societal challenges. Our plans for the future, which I'll share with you today, reflect these commitments. By 2025, our plan has the potential to more than double our earnings and continues our investments in game changing lower emissions technologies. Through record discoveries markets, we've put together the best portfolio of new investments since the merger of ExxonMobil nearly 20 years ago. Integration and most importantly, our people. Our plans are all about creating value for you, our shareholders, by meeting and evolve. In the late 1800s, we were largely a kerosene company. That's what our customers needed. Ford mass produced cars, a market for 1 nature of our business. We've always adapted to society's change. Across more than 135 years, we've evolved and transformed from a maker of lamp fuel to a maker of motor fuel, from supplying the Wright Brothers' first airplane to supplying the Space Shuttle, from relying on rubber from trees to developing butyl rubber to support the war effort, from turning natural gas once a byproduct of oil into a cleaner fuel for electricity from not only refining hydrocarbons, but also reforming them into chemical products like high efficiency plastics, from filling tanks with gasoline to potentially filling them with biofuels made from algae and so do we. We have a very long history of consistently rising to and meeting the challenges of a dynamic world. Many in society are looking for solutions that address the risk of climate change. Provide more information on the implications for our company and how we manage the risk. We listened. In this year's energy and carbon summary, we went even further in sharing our insights. Insights gained through operating 1 of the largest company committed to a sustained research and development effort. Society has aspirations for economic growth, reliable and affordable energy and environmental protection. We see our role as helping close the gap. This is what I believe sustainability is all about. Sharing ideas and solving challenges with smart, dedicated people across this company is what I have come to enjoy most about this job, sharing some of our ideas with you today. Let me turn now to our view of the future of energy. As I mentioned, that's where we start. Energy is critical to human development. So it's no surprise the market for oil and prosper, you need access to reliable and affordable energy. I've seen the positive impact access to energy can have. Growing up, I moved all around the world and spent time in a number of developing countries, and I saw firsthand the difference in the role our industry is playing in raising living standards all around the world. To better understand the global market for energy and our company's role in, you have to break it down by sector. Not all energy demand is the same. Different sources meet different needs. There are 4 primary demand sectors: transportation, commercial. Each sector's energy needs are different. The transportation sector, for example, requires energy dense portable fuels, especially for heavy duty vehicles. That typically means liquids like diesel, different emissions profile. As an example, the industrial sector has higher worldwide emissions than transportation or societal demands and energy sources evolve, so does the mix and the amount of different energy supplies. With a prominent role for oil and natural gas. In 2,040, oil and natural gas will likely meet about 55,000,000 barrels a day. That's up from about 160,000,000 today. Other sources this outlook is based on assumed advances in technology could be dramatically different. Technology is truly the X factor. The history of our industry shows how technology can value. Public policy is another critical factor. When developing our outlook, we assume that public policy will evolve. In fact, we had anticipated and incorporated impacts of the commitments that eventually emerged from the Paris Agreement, an agreement that we've always supported approach to a global challenge. It commits both developed and developing countries to reducing emissions and making progress towards achieving a 2 degree outcome. We looked at a wide range of 2 degree scenarios through 2,040 and all of them. This analysis confirmed that more technology is needed. And that's why we're seeing a lot of demand and cut emissions. In the electricity generation and industrial sectors, carbon capture and storage is one of our major focus areas. It's a scalable solution and will be critical to achieving a 2 degree scenario for research. Since then, we've made even more progress with our partner FuelCell Energy. Next generation biofuel is another technology we're taking the lead on, significant emissions. New biofuels could address both of these issues. We're making exciting progress with uses algae as an energy source. This past year, we announced a breakthrough that resulted in a modified algae that more than doubles its oil content. We achieved this without significantly slowing growth, which is a key challenge along the path And earlier this year, we entered a new phase of our research, growing algae. In the industrial sector, we're looking at ways to reduce heating and cooling and therefore energy and emissions for a range of processes. This sector of our work in this area is a project with Georgia Tech that could significantly reduce the amount of emissions associated with manufacturing plastics and chemical building blocks for polyester and plastics. Results of the research were published in the peer reviewed journal Science I mean more energy efficient. This not only saves money, it cuts emissions. Since 2000, we've improved energy efficient. Since 2013, we've used technology to reduce emissions and intensity in our Chemical business by 7% cut greenhouse gas emissions. By 2020, we're targeting a 15% reduction in methane emissions with a focus on our We're also targeting a 25% reduction in flare. These efforts are the latest in our ongoing drive to develop lower emissions energy solutions. Since 2000, we spent more than $9,000,000,000 in this area. It's good for the environment, it's good for our business and it remains a priority. We turn now to our investment strategy. Oil and natural gas are consumable energy sources. Reservoirs don't refill. So without investment, we cannot meet demand. We cannot maintain, let alone grow available supplies. For this reason, meeting the world's growing energy needs will require 1,000,000,000,000 scenario. We're doing our part to meet this challenge and grow our business. Our current plans increase our earnings potential by 135% by 2025, assuming an oil price of $60 a barrel. Our advantage, we mean those projects that enable us to maximize the value of our technologies, our integrated businesses and our people. This maximizes the return for you. Many of our advantaged investments are in the upstream Mozambique and Guyana to name just a few. There's our new manufacturing operations in Texas and in Singapore. Our investment plans like every aspect focus on success factors that are true regardless of market conditions. And we leverage areas where we have unique competitive strengths. The first fundamental, the right way, time after time. Safety performance is one measure of this. Keeping people who work in our and the disciplined approach required to consistently do this result are an industry leader in safety. Project deep experience and hands on management. From Mega Projects Offshore Eastern Canada are delivering industry leading results. Underlying both of these fundamentals is another. This company behind every successful well, every very people. We put a priority on recruiting and retaining the most talented, most creative and most dedicated in the business. Integration and technology are 2 other fundamentals which distinguish us from others in the industry. Let me discuss the importance of each. Producing energy and products from oil and natural gas required by a complex infrastructure. Our Permian Gulf Coast investments are a great example of this. We work at our rig sites, moving the resources through miles of pipeline our customers' demand. Because we fully integrate our value at every link. Our whole is more valuable to you than the sum of our parts. Technology is another fundamental where we have a significant competitive advantage. The energy landscape has gone through dramatic changes over the years, primarily driven by advances in technology. Our sustained investment in R and D unmatched in our industry often enable us to lead these changes and to capitalize on them. So now let me briefly describe how we apply these fundamentals in each of our three business lines. As I said earlier, we've developed the richest portfolio of investment opportunities since the merger. Our potential for earnings growth is strong and industry can match our opportunities set today. In the upstream, you've heard about our exploration success in Guyana, one of the industry industry's biggest discoveries over the past 3 years. We've also gained access to world class LNG opportunities in Papua New Guinea, It is a rich and diverse portfolio and they are very good investments. Our LNG projects in particular are key enabling cleaner natural gas to replace coal for electricity generation. These upstream investments play advantage of our capabilities and project execution and operational excellence, linking many of them to our refining and chemical assets. And we're able to apply a suite of industry leading technologies. Examples include advanced seismology, integrated reservoir modeling and data analytics. These innovative tools enable us to identify and develop the best opportunities and maximize the value we create for you. Our turnaround time from discovery to production is one of the best in the business. All of these projects will be producing by 2025. At that time, they will make up half of our upstream earnings, again assuming oil price of $60 And they will also represent a threefold increase in our Upstream earnings potential. Let me turn now to the downstream. Here the name of the game is upgrading, shifting the product slate from lower value fuel oils to higher value refined fuels, lubricants and chemicals. We should profit by squeezing value out of every molecule. We do that by leveraging our proprietary technology. Technology that we developed that isn't available to our competitors 2 world class hydrocracker at Rotterdam and technology and to produce higher value products. Strongerli and Asia Pacific also provide key advantages. By 2025, our Downstream earnings potential will double. Finally, let me update you on our Chemical business. No other major integrated oil and gas company has a chemical business that compares with ours. Our competition are the pure chemical companies that do nothing else. And even here, we're in the top tier. The chemical business strategy is both growing capacity and upgrading to higher value art of modern life, from preserving food to make cars lighter, which helps reduce emissions. Technology like innovative catalyst to turn hydrocarbons are changing the world, like plastic films that are extending integration adds significant value here as well. From advantaged feed and shared facilities with refineries, to leveraging upstream project expertise to the Permian to Gulf Coast network I referred to earlier. And we have great access to booming markets around the world 2025. The investments we're making to grow each of our businesses all aim to do one thing, maximize value for you, our shareholders and for society. We have a long history of doing this. For a capital intensive business like ours, a critical measure of this value is return on capital employed, where we have consistently led industry. Our investment plans will further strengthen our leadership position. At current prices, we expect to more than double our earnings potential while growing our returns. As I indicated, this growth is shared among all of our business lines. Everyone is contributing to the bottom line. And since our projects are uniquely advantaged, they are robust to a low price environment. Not many other companies can say this with confidence. We're committed to sharing the success with you, our shareholders, through a reliable growing dividend. For generations, we've been a leader in dividend growth, which we maintained again this year when we increased the dividend by 6.5%. It was our 36th consecutive annual increase. The higher earnings and cash flow from our investment plans underpin our ability to continue this trend. Let me end my comments where I started. It's the mission of this company to create shareholder value by creating societal value. Increasingly, our customers, partners and stakeholders demand more energy and fewer environmental impacts, including emissions. Our job is to help close the gap between what society wants and what is economically available using advantaged investments and promising technology. As society's need continue to evolve, we'll continue to respond. That's what this company and our people are committed to doing. That's our purpose and we have a plan to fulfill it. I want to thank you again for the confidence you put in our company. Let me turn now to the formal business of the meeting. We have 7 proposals to consider, including the election of directors. The proposal will be presented in the order they appear in the proxy statement. The polls are now open. If you wish to change your proxy instructions on any of the proposals, ballot, they are available from the ushers. Please raise your hand if you would like a ballot at any time during the formal business. They'll be collected after all items have been introduced. The first proposal is the election of 10 directors. I nominate the 10 highly qualified to serve on the Board. All of our nominees are currently serving as ExxonMobil Directors. I'd now like to ask each of our nominees seated to my right to stand as their names are called. Susan Avery, Angela Brawley. Ursula Burns. Kenneth Frazier? Douglas Oberhelman, Samuel Palmisano, Steven Reinemann, William Weldon. Thank you. I'd like to also take this opportunity to recognize one of our directors who is retiring and not standing for reelection, Doctor. Michael Boskin, who has served on our board for 22 years. The next item on the agenda is the ratification of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the independent auditor. The Board's audit committee team, we are asking shareholders to ratify that appointment. PwC is represented today by Mr. Tom Smith. Tom, would you please stand? Thank you. The audit committee's reasons for recommending PwC appear in the proxy statement. I move to adopt this proposal. The next Board proposal calls for a shareholder advisory vote to approve executive compensation. The Board recommends a vote in favor of this proposal. The next order of business is the consideration of shareholder proposals. And before we begin, shareholders suggestions or discussions. Last year, for example, we engaged with shareholders holding about 30% of our total shareholders. In a number of instances, we adopted shareholders suggestions. An example of this is the Board Diversity Committee. For most proposals we receive, we agree with the underlying principles and stated objectives. We tip for those following along, details can be found in the proxy statement. The first shareholder proposal calls for an independent Chairman. I understand that Michelle Fulder Taylor will present the proposal. Good morning, members of the Board and fellow shareholders. My name is Michelle Folder Taylor, and I present the proposal filed by Kessler Foundation of Maine and co filed by the State of Vermont Pension Fund, requesting the separation of positions of Chair and CEO. This resolution has been before shareholders for the last several years. The resolution is not a criticism of our new CEO of ExxonMobil. It is a request for what we consider best governance practice and proposes the policy of a separate independent share be phased in when a new CEO is next chosen in the future. We believe an independent share and Board can improve the company's focus on governance matters, strengthen accountability to shareholders and thus in the best interest of our company. It is widely recognized that chairing the Board is a very time intensive job. And separate chair also frees time for our new CEO to focus on running the company, Intel former Chairman worth repeating. Is a company a sandboxed for the CEO or is the CEO an employee? If he's an employee, he needs a boss, and that boss is the Board. The Chairman runs the board, so he can so how can he become a company has this policy? And hundreds of U. S. Companies do as well. By 2017, boards at 36% of S and P1500 Companies has an independent chair and 55% has separate chair and CEO. There is a strong growing investor support for this reform. This resolution was filed at several dozen companies last year. Sun Mobile Current's position is that the proposal would unusually reduce the flexibility of the Board to elect leadership structure that separate roles should not be managed and that the Board is not wed to this model of continued CEO and Chair. We understand that the Board wishes the flexibility to choose either a combined or separate chair, where tradition has great power. At present, we fear that whatever a new CEO is chosen, that the Board will continue this tradition of combined growth. In fact, as far as we know, the Board has no guidelines to help it assess what are the pros and cons of a separate chair or a combined chair. We would urge a set of guidelines. Be prepared to help with this assessment. This is a crucial time for companies to demonstrate compensation that is not compromised if the CEO is the 1st among equals on the Board. Thank you. Thank you, Michelle. In response to the proposal, let me share with you the Board's perspective. We agree with you indicated to representing the interest of shareholders and providing and I can assure you our Board does this, does not undermine this objective. That's where we disagree with the proponents of this proposal. It's important to note that 9 of our 10 directors are independent, including the presiding Director. The Board believes that independent Board leadership is effectively provided by the Presiding Director. Also, the Board Affairs Committee, Public Issues and Contributions Committee, Audit Committee and of course, the Compensation Committee are all chaired by independent directors. We believe the Board should retain flexibility to determine the leadership structure that best serves the interest of shareholders. Therefore, the Board recommends shareholders vote against this proposal. Mr. Chairman, Board, Kenneth Steiner, resolved, shareholders asked the Board of Directors to take the steps necessary to the owners of 10% of the outstanding common stock the power to call a special shareholder meeting without the cumbersome need to petition the judge. Special meetings allow shareholders to vote on important matters such as electing new directors that can arise between annual meetings. The proposal topic won more than 70% support at average life sciences and Sun Addison in 2013. A shareholder right to call a special meeting without the cumbersome need to petition a judge to bring an important matter to the attention of both management and shareholders outside the annual meeting cycle, such as the election of directors. Scores of Fortune 500 companies provide for shareholders to call special meetings without the cumbersome need to petition a judge and act by written consent, 17th Annual Exxon Meeting. This 40% support could have been higher, for instance, 45% if small shareholders have the same access to independent corporate governance information as large shareholders? Please vote yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Frank. We agree that shareholders should have a meaningful right to call a special meeting. This right is already provided for in New Jersey where we're incorporated. Current law allows shareholders holding 10% of our company's outstanding stock to call meetings with the showing of good cause. We believe that requirement to show good cause is prudent. It demonstrates legitimate purpose and protects against abuse. It's worth noting that the Board has done nothing to restrict this right. Therefore, the Board recommends shareholders vote against this proposal. The next shareholder proposal asked that a Board diversity matrix be included in the proxy statement. I understand that Michelle Fodor Taylor will present this proposal as well. Michelle? Good morning, again, once again. I'm from New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer, and I'm here to present Proposal VI on behalf of New York City Pension Funds. New York City Pension Funds have $194,000,000,000 in assets and are substantial long term Exxon shareholders with current holdings of about 9,200,000 shares. Item 6 calls for a disclosure of a Board matrix that includes each director's gender, race, ethnicity as well as their skills, experience and attributes that are most relevant in light of the company's business long term strategy and risk. A diverse Board in terms of relevant skills, experience, gender and raceethnicity is a good indicator of a well functioning Board. The need for Exxon to have a diverse climate competent board is especially important given the long term strategic challenges it faced in order to transition successfully to a low carbon future. Exxon Directors may be highly accomplished, but it's difficult for shareholders to assess whether they are the right directors individually and collectively to oversee Exxon on our behalf. The bar chart in the proxy statement that lists aggregate directors' attributes tell investors nothing about ability of individual directors, nor are the specific attributes wealth gives shareholders a big picture view of the directors' attributes and how they fit together. Our office has had productive discussions with management and directors at dozens of companies. By contrast, all 5 of our requests to engage directly with an independent Exxon Director went unanswered. As a result, Xtron Board is today an outlier in the opposition to disclosure of a meaningful Board matrix. Exron Pairs such as Chevron, Accidental Petroleum and IBM discloses board purchases. Other companies providing first time disclosure this year include PepsiCo, Exelon, Wells Fargo, Colgate Palmolive, Honeywell International and Duke Energy among others. I urge your perspective on that. We agree that diversity of experience, background, gender and ethnicity is critical to Board competence. Our Board benefits from varying perspectives that diversity brings. Diversity is required. Instead, we've provided detailed in our website for each individual director. We've also provided an overview of the collective competencies and the diversity of this proposal. The last shareholder proposal calls for a report on lobbying and I understand that Richard Brooks will present the proposal. Mr. Chairman, Board, fellow shareholders, my name is Ricky Brooks. I'm 19 year employee at ExxonMobil at the Baytown Refinery. On behalf of the United Steelworkers and 25 co filers, I hereby move out of 7, shareholders proposal about lobbying. Corporations spend 1,000,000 of dollars with trade associations that lobby indirectly enforce model state legislation such as the American Legislative Exchange Council. As a shareholder, we currently have no idea, but we know AT and T spent $600,000 of company funds to hire a personal attorney to the in the United States. For 5 years, AT and T has had similar shareholder resolutions regarding lobbying. Alex positions on workers' rights, health and safety on the job are particularly troublesome to us. We see their impact in how our company is unilaterally implementing complex and confusing safety changes in Baytown. For decades, these safety practices have been mutually agreed upon to ensure workers' health and safety. Company is also seeking to tear down and roll back contracts, provisions and arbitration awards to achieve its goal of a regional or global permitting system. Shareholders should be concerned that core health and safety our company's arguments against item 7 states that shareholders can use government websites to get this information. Filers of this proposal have engaged numerous experienced researchers. I can assure you that if government websites exist, it is not easy to find. In January, our company told proponents it would offer a tutorial on where to locate the data, but unsurprisingly, the tutorial has failed to occur. We urge to report our reputation could be at stake. Finally, I'd like to show support of the ExxonMobil Council of several ExxonMobil support of unfair labor practices at its Australian operations. Company's Australian subsidiary GL and slashing maintenance workers' wages up to 30%, cutting benefits for 200 maintenance contractors and imposing a work longer periods of time. It is time for the dispute to come to a fair and reasonable end. Thank you. Thank you, Rick. I mean, thank you too for your years of service in Baytown. You had quite a few things in that talk there. You find Baytown is probably one of the safest, I know it's one of the safest refineries we have in the circuit and one of the safest actually in the whole world. So I think great progress that we're making in safety. And on the Australia incident, I understand the contractors and the union there are continuing to have discussions, which I continue to fully encourage. I think the ongoing dialogue is important to resolving all these the issues there. On the report, appropriate transparency and the disclosure of lobbying activities and our expenditures. We believe our compliance with existing federal and state disclosure requirements achieve this objective. AXA Mobile complies not only with the letter, but also with for many years and are comprehensive. We publicly report our federal lobbying expenses to Congress on a quarterly basis. In addition, we outlined the specific issues that are lobbied. So to summarize, the Board believes the company's existing disclosures are appropriate appropriate and therefore recommend you vote against this proposal. Now all items of business have now been introduced. If any of you have proxy cards, please hand them to the ushers If you would like to change your vote, simply mark the appropriate sections in the ballot. The ballots will be collected and turned over to the If you wish your ballot to be kept secret, the usher will provide you with an envelope by cast all votes that we have been authorized to cast in accordance with the instructions indicated on the individual proxy cards. I now declare the poll closed. Now since you've all been sitting for a while, I invite you, if you'd like to stand and stretch for a minute. For those wishing to address the meeting in the discussion period, this would be a good time to move towards those reserved seats in the aisles. Let's take a short break. All right, ladies and gentlemen, let's, if we could, resume the meeting. Please take your seats. I can tell from the chatter that was a much needed break. So I'm glad you got a chance to stretch and talk to a few folks around. So we'll start now with some questions. I'm going to hand it over to Jeff, let him orchestrate the Q and A session. First, the Inspector of Election is ready to report the preliminary vote. May we have your report, please? Mr. Chairman and Mr. Secretary, at least 3,600,000,000 shares of stock of the corporation have been voted on the 7 items of business discussed at today's meeting. Voting results are expressed as a percentage of total votes cast. According to New Jersey corporate law, abstentions are not votes cast. Subject to report that on average, 97.6% of the votes cast were voted to elect as directors the 10 nominees listed in the proxy statement. On the resolution concerning the ratification of independent auditors, approximately 97.3% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 2.7% were voted against. On the resolution, nearly 72.9% of the shares voting in Iran were voted for and 27.1% were voted against. 88.7% of the shares of voting in Iran were voted for and 61% were voted against. On the resolution concerning shareholder excuse me, special shareholder meetings, approximately 36.0% of the shares voting they're on were voted for and 64.0% were voted against. On the resolution concerning our Board Diversity Matrix, approximately 16.5% of the shares voted against. On the resolution concerning our report on being approximately 26.3 percent of the shares voted against. My written reports will be submitted to the secretary as soon as they are completed. Thank you, Paula. The election will be followed with the minutes of the meeting. The final votes on each of these matters will also be available on ExxonMobil website. Let me just say that we respect our shareholders' input and we'll consider all the feedback that we received regardless of whether the resolution received a majority of the votes cast. This concludes the formal business of today's meeting. I'll hand it over to Jeff now to moderate our Q and A session and open the floor to any questions regarding ExxonMobil's business. Jeff? As previously indicated, if you want to speak, remain seated and raise your speaker identification card to indicate that you want to address the meeting. When recognized, give your completed speaker card to the usher. Please stand and begin by stating your name. You may speak for up to 2 minutes while the usher holds the microphone. Please make your comments as brief as possible, so we can accommodate as many speakers as time allows. We will continue to use the lighting system to help you manage your time. First priority will be given to those who have not yet had the opportunity to speak. We welcome your questions and comments at this time. So we will start in the shirt with the sunglasses. Hello. My question relates to the recent dividend increase to $0.82 per share to do what seems like a large increase given the current commodity price environment? Thank you. Thank you for the question. So I appreciate the balance in that questioning. I would tell you every quarter of the Board responsibility that we have to our shareholders to provide a reliable and growing dividend. And we think about it in the context of the capacity and capability of the business, the yield that we're getting on the shares. So number of factors that go into it. Our most recent decision, I would tell you, and the strength of that dividend increase reflects the plan that I talked about today and shared with you the opportunity growth that that opportunity sets from an earnings standpoint is going to result in, which will underpin and we try to obviously the commodity cycles play a role in that strength of that. And in this most recent dividend after coming out of a very low commodity cycle where we kept dividends fairly low was an opportunity to catch. Thank you for that question. Gentlemen over on the far right, sitting down with the Clark, shoot, please. Thank you, Mr. Horton from Houston. My wife and I have been attending these meetings for 25 years, and we're grateful for the service that you have that you and all the others render and especially the 36 years of consecutive dividend increases. But for those of us who have owned shares in Exxon from we remember when debt was a word foreign to Exxon. We revered in the fact that we were considered darlings of investors. And we realize that the market share of our stock You've been dealt a most difficult hand. Wall Street is virtually negative about today's performance. And it's embarrassing to me who love this company. I do not mean to be impolite or cranky, Brian, to you or the board. But in the words of Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank. Well, thank you for the question of our shares. And I will tell you, I don't find your comments out of order or cranky. I think they're perfectly legitimate to address. In fact, we have tried through the presentation to get the company to grow value. Because if you think about what ultimately is going to drive shareholder price is going to be shareholder and I can assure you the management committee and myself have been very focused on working hard to make sure that we're leveraging every competitive advantage that we've got in the company to grow shareholder value and grow earnings. I think does that. In fact, if you look at the planned growth depending on where the price environment is. And if the price environment is lower than what we've assumed, we're still going to grow earnings. Even in a low price environment, we're seeing 100 and 35% where we were in 2017. So I think even a low price environment are in the business. I think the plans demonstrate our focus on that and we're doing it across each of the businesses. So I hope to find as the years go forward that your visit just what we're very focused in working on. Thank you for the question. When the suit behind Miss Fulda Taylor, please? Thank you. I'm Julian Martinez, and I represent Sarah Jaws for Progress National. We would like to note that ExxonMobil has been very instrumental in providing educational resources like STEM and STEAM to Hispanic students and would like to thank you for that support and for all the other communities support you provide. However, we would like to note that ExxonMobil has management team. We urge you to rectify this shortcoming. We'd also like you to consider participating in Hispanic Association on Corporate Responsibility's Corporate Inclusion Index about their engagement with the Latino community. The American dream is alive and well. Hispanics born in this country are more the Latino population grew 57% between the year 20,014 and accounted for over 43. U. S. Latino purchasing power is $1,500,000,000,000 which makes U. S. Latinos the world's 14th largest economy. We hope that ExxonMobil has a vision to incorporate these changes. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the comments. I will assure you that promoting is a focus area and a priority for me and the rest of the management team and not just in at Dallas at the corporate level, but as you go through our corporation, I would tell you that all of our managers are focused on making sure and a potential to advance and to realize their full potential. And so our objective is making sure that happens. We put a lot of structure into helping ensure that that happens and in stewarding it through our businesses to make sure that we're looking for opportunities to improve, identifying areas where we don't like what we're seeing and addressing those. And I think over the years, we've seen great progress with the diversity of our workforce. We've got a longer ways to start when you hire and you're hiring class and then as that class advances through the organization. And so we track the diversity and the groups from the day they come in the door as they advance to make sure that they are advancing at the same rate and the same pace and getting the same on on, we've seen that continue to grow and to impact the whole of the business. So I'm confident over the years, you'll continue to see growing diversity in the corporation, reflecting the diversity of the population that is available to us to come into the company, which are tend to be engineering and technical degrees. So I think I take your point, I think it's important one, but I'll also tell you it's one we're very focused on developing. I'm Nancy Keene. And my question is about the concern of the oil industry and ExxonMobil of our domestic infrastructure assets, particularly in the refinery area production and pipeline? Thank you. That's a really important topic and one that is evolving every day. It's a big challenge. I think that I travel in recognize the threat and the risk that our corporation has recognized that threat from very early on and has built that risk and that exposure. And it starts with the structure, the architecture of our systems where we have made sure that we separate the critical process control computing systems for our plants and our process and operating computing systems and we've been very, very successful with that. We also have a very substantial program of continuing to upgrade and put in new systems, check for viruses, continually working to harden their employees to use USB ports because one of the common things out in industry for viruses to get into computers are through these USBs, somebody finds a USB and plugs into the computer. And so our computers, so people aren't allowed to stick USBs in which has reduced it. We don't allow people to use personal email on our computing systems because we found we've eliminated that. So we've taken a lot of steps to try to protect our systems. The other thing that we do, which in talking to my peers around the different industries, we're fairly unique in and as we test our employees very routinely with mock attacks to see how they respond and we track that. And we're able to engage in conversations and help train and make people more sensitive. So I would tell you today, when we have our test out there to test our employee base, we have the lowest failure rate probably of anybody in the industry, at any industry in the U. S. When I talk to Michael Dell or I talk to other industry execs and talk about what we're doing and the failure rate that we're seeing, you said they're unheard of levels. So I feel good that we have been focused on this and we're working at the right way. On the other hand, this is a continually evolving threat and one that we have to stay on be faced and continue to work for as long as I can see going into the future. But I feel confident that the tools available to us today, we're drawing on the best that's out there and we've got a very qualified group of people helping us manage that and we've got our workforce very attuned to that. But I wouldn't tell you that I'm comfortable. Thank you, though. Okay. Going back to the right, the gentleman in the blue shirt. My name is Glenn Sampson. I was an employee for 35 years, been a shareholder for almost 50 years. My question has to do with what steps, if any, or studies, if any, the company is making to be able to continue to operate in the event of an electromagnetic pulse, EMP attack on the United States. As you probably know, North Korea has threatened that, Iran has threatened that and there there's a cost of only $3,000,000,000 We could harden all of the electric grids in the nation. No one's involved is trying to spend any money. But so my question is, is Exxon looking at that in terms of our own assets? Are we doing any talking with electric companies, with the government? Because the estimate is that if there were an EMP attack over the center of the United States, that approximately 60% of us would be dead within a year. Thank you. Well, thanks for your years of service and you're coming to the meeting. Let me rather than talk specifically about that threat, let me just talk more broadly about how we manage risk. And I would tell you, it starts with making sure we including risk like the one that you're referring to. And we have relationships and engagement with a variety of government agencies, think tanks to make sure that the understanding of the threat scenarios that are out there are understood. And we put that risk exposure, we lay that across and we have a process for each of the business managers who have responsibility for those facilities and businesses that are exposed to those risks would be on their operations, what the probability of that those risks are, how that would manifest itself in our exposure and 2, respond if that risk was to manifest itself and impact the operations, how would we respond to that? And so a very detailed process, a very comprehensive process across all of our businesses, making sure we understood, explicitly characterized and then clear explicit that we continue to update on a regular basis, ensure that our facilities and operations stay on top of that and evolve with those threats is a pretty important aspect of that program. But at the end of the day, we're in a risk management business and so it's exactly what we do and your question falls into the heart of that frankly. Thank you. Okay. On the left side, the gentleman in the suit with the blue shirt, red tie. Mr. Chairman, my name is Sudarshan Singh. I'm a retiree of ExxonMobil. My question is regarding whenever we ExxonMobil has the earnings report, the analysts always point out as one of the factors either we have a flat or a declining production as one of the reasons for the stock performance. So my question is with the oil prices hovering around $80 a barrel, what is ExxonMobil's plan in Canada? And are we planning to increase our Canadian operations, so especially considering we have extensive proven reserves, which can help increase the production? Okay. Thank you. That's a good question. You're right. It is brought up pretty frequently. Let me just start at a more philosophical level, which is we are not managing the business and the upstream in particular on a volumes basis. The way we think about our investments in our business is making sure that what we do and the investments that we progress are advantaged to be robust to a wide range of price environments and has to generate a superior return to what the average in the industry would be. And so that requires lining up opportunity sets with our inherent skills and advantages. And that's a process that we've been going through. And from the presentation that I gave, you can see that a number of those have kind of come to maturity around this time and we've now built that into our plan. Hence, the comments that I've made that this is the richest that's a function of the work that had been happening in the years past to make sure that we line up the opportunity set with the investments. And then the volumes will fall out of that. And so I think what you will see in this plan that we've laid out through 2025 is a growth in volumes of about 1,000,000 barrels a day from where we're at today to 2025. So we'll get to about 5,000,000 barrels a day as we execute these plans, not an objective unto itself. With respect to Canada, and I would tell you more broadly with all of our investment opportunities, We have a pretty thorough process of evaluating the robustness of that investment and the profitability of that investment broader portfolio of opportunities. So, every investment opportunity is kind of fighting for space. And so that's the process that we go through. Canadian opportunities are in the mix with others. And what we tend to do is make sure that we're selecting the highest value opportunities first and progressing those first. And so that's the process that we go through every year that because our organization finds a way to improve it and bringing in new technologies, bringing in improving returns, improving productivity. And so that's kind of an ongoing process and investments will move around within that portfolio based on how much better the organization can make those returns. So I would tell you the Canadian investment opportunities are competing in the portfolio. They're getting their fair hearing and then we're making the best. Thank you. Okay. I believe we have one more time for one more question. The gentleman on the far My name is Joe Meyer from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. And I'd like to talk a minute about the safety performance on the Gulf Coast. Several years back, we implemented a program that was called LPS in order to come up with a new implementation of driving down the number of people getting the law. The let's pretend safety program penalizes and punishes and disciplines an employee who reports this incident or gets hurt the employee not report that incident for fear of getting disciplined. And therefore, it does not accurately and that is a scary thing for both the corporation and for the employee. I'd like what it's intended to do and help the employee really have a productive employment and a safe employment. But we need to do something better than what we currently have. Thank you. Well, thank you for your comments. And I'm familiar with, I've been responsible at a plant level, responsible for implementing LPS at a regional level and then at a global level and now corporately looking at safety across the whole of the organization. And I would tell you, your experience is very different than the philosophy of that system of LPS is to make sure that people are learning from the by those incidents and near misses that we get better and improve. And therefore, it is the antithesis of what you described, which is to say it encourages people to talk about and we've had great success with that. You can look at the numbers around the world, a lot more near miss reporting, a lot more learnings going on of injury across our corporation, across all parts of the corporation. So we're not perfect at standpoint. I would tell you we're making tremendous progress. We're on the right path. We've got more work to do. But LPS has played a very important role in that. And I don't care if you're talking to our construction project managers and facilities, they all will tell you when we use LPS the right way, you encourage the conversation. It's not about punishment, it's about learning and we've had great success with that. So not sure why your experience is different with that broader theme and experience set across the corporation, but I would encourage you to kind of engage in that conversation with your supervisor because we've had great experience across the Corporation. And it's one of these it was an example of where learning and getting better is directly impacting not only the lives of the people who are in our facilities working, but also all the people associated with the acquisition and one that I'm very, very proud of, quite frankly. I think we're out of time for questions. Let me thank all of you for your questions and more importantly for your interest in our business. And before we close, I'd like to share video with our employees and how they're helping to meet the world's energy needs while protecting the environment. World and ExxonMobil is playing a big role in providing it, making advantaged investments in different corners of the world, growing production, providing jobs, building new facilities and upgrading others to make economic development all around the world. And we're working on ways to provide energy while addressing the risks of climate change, producing clean burning natural gas to reduce emissions before it reaches the atmosphere and exploring unexpected energy sources like biofuels made from algae. We're also investing in ways you might not expect. Energy. It powers our lives today, and it is more committed to providing it than the people of ExxonMobil. Thank you. As we wrap up this year's Annual Meeting, I'd like to briefly summarize some of the key points we covered today. It's the mission of this company, your company, to create value for our shareholders by creating value for society. And we do so by responding to society's changing needs for energy, economic growth and environmental protection. More people around the world are demanding more energy. Fewer emissions, our business strategy and 4, just as we have throughout our history. We're focused on the fundamentals, we're focused on our competitive advantages, we're focused on continuing to create value for all of you. The Board and I have great confidence in our plans for the future, and we're grateful for the confidence you've placed in us. Thank you for coming today. This time, I'm going to close the meeting, and I wish all of you safe travels. Thank you.