Morning, ladies and gentlemen. Please find a seat if you've not done so already. It is 9:30 A.M. I would ask the meeting please come to order. I'm Rex Tillerson, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the ExxonMobil Corporation. Again, I'm pleased that all of you have chosen to take some time this morning and effort to join us in person today. Also want to welcome many of those who are joining us around the world via the internet. We welcome them as well and their interest in the corporation. I do hope, I know I saw many of you out in the foyer, that you had an opportunity to meet some of our employees that were manning the various booths and sharing some additional information to you.
These are some of the 75,000 men and women of the ExxonMobil Corporation who work 365 days a year, 7 days a week, 24 hours a day to deliver the energy that the world's economies and people need to enjoy the quality of life that we all enjoy here and that others aspire to one day enjoy. Many of them are working in some pretty tough locations, and we appreciate them. I will have the opportunity to report to you on our financial and operating results. When I do, as I've said in the past, I'm really reporting to you on their results. I'm privileged to stand here today to represent them to you. Jeff Woodbury is seated to my right. He is the Vice President of Investor Relations and the Corporate Secretary. He will help me run the meeting today.
I'll introduce the members of the board to you later in the meeting. As mentioned on page two of the proxy statement, it is the policy of the corporation to provide shareholders an opportunity for privacy in voting. For shareholders who returned their proxy cards without written comments, the voted proxies have not been seen by nor reported to the corporation except in aggregate numbers. Anyone turning in a proxy card at this meeting who wishes to keep his or her votes secret may obtain an envelope from the ushers. Proxy cards will be collected later in the meeting. A list of shareholders entitled to vote at this meeting or at any adjournment thereof is available for inspection. If anyone wishes to examine this list, an usher will be pleased to direct you to the proper location.
Charlie Nesralla and Lori Shamoon of Computershare Trust Company have been appointed inspectors of the election for this meeting. They have taken an oath of office that has been delivered to the secretary for filing with the minutes of the meeting. Notice of this meeting has been properly given. The inspectors of election have determined that a quorum is present. There are more than 93,000 shareholders represented at this meeting, holding at least 3.5 billion shares or approximately 83.9% of the issued and outstanding shares of stock of the corporation entitled to vote. I direct that the inspector's written determination as to the number of shares entitled to vote at the meeting be filed with the minutes. I declare a quorum present and the meeting ready for business. I'd now like to explain our plan for conducting the meeting today.
First, Secretary Woodbury will outline the rules of conduct and how to gain recognition. I'll make some brief comments about our business results and the future we see for your company. The 11 items of business will be presented, beginning with the election of directors, the ratification of independent auditors, and the advisory vote to approve executive compensation as required by law. We will continue the eight shareholders proposals shown in the proxy statement, which was sent to all shareholders. As described in the annual meeting program, discussion on the 11 items of business will be deferred until all items have been presented. Time permitting, we will respond to some of the questions submitted ahead of time via proxy cards and the internet.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Ladies and gentlemen, good morning. I would first like to take this opportunity to familiarize everyone with the safety features of this 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, please do not stand in the aisles or in the back of the hall, and do not block the exit. To ensure that the meeting is conducted in the interest of all shareholders, there are certain rules of conduct governing this meeting.
Upon completion of the discussion on the items of business and voting, the polls will be closed, the formal business of this year's annual meeting will be concluded, and the inspectors of election will prepare their preliminary voting report. While they're doing so, there should be some time for additional comments or questions about ExxonMobil's business. When the inspectors are ready, I will ask them to give us their voting report. We will conclude the meeting. At this time, let me turn the podium to Jeff Woodbury to discuss the rules of conduct.
These rules are posted on signs at the entrances of the meeting, included in the program, and shown on the screen behind me. Let me now cover several of the rules. The distribution of pamphlets and other literature, banners, signs, and other displays is strictly prohibited in this hall. Anyone who intentionally obstructs or interferes with this lawful meeting by physical action or verbal utterance is in violation of Texas law. Any persons engaging in such conduct will be asked to cease, and if they refuse, they will be escorted from 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.
In fairness to other shareholders not in attendance, and keeping with the laws that govern the annual meeting, formal business at today's meeting is restricted to the items included in this year's proxy statement. As such, additional proposals may not be introduced from the floor. In order to present a proposal, you must have checked in at 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 presenter's pass. If neither the proponent nor an authorized proxy has checked in and obtained a presenter's pass, we will presume the proponent is not present and I will move the proposal for the purposes of an orderly conduct of the meeting and so that shareholder votes cast may be recorded.
I will not be acting as a representative of the proponent. The authorized presenter of a shareholder proposal will have up to three minutes to present the proposal. Time may not be shared with another speaker and no second to the motion is required. As the chairman indicated, discussion on all items of business will be deferred until the discussion period later in the meeting. Only shareholders as of the record date or their properly appointed proxies are entitled to speak at this annual meeting of ExxonMobil shareholders. Shareholders making comments during the meeting must speak or have their words translated into English so that the majority of shareholders present can understand what is being said. Comments that are offensive or otherwise inappropriate will not be permitted.
We would also ask that any issues of personal interest that are not relevant to all shareholders be raised directly with appropriate company representatives outside of the annual meeting. We request that individual shareholders respect the rights of others to speak and keep their comments as brief as possible. As noted in the proxy statement, the chairman has broad authority to conduct the meeting in an orderly and timely manner. If you wish to make comments, you must first fill out a speaker identification card that is included in the program that was provided to you as you entered the lobby. This card confirms that you meet the requirements to speak at this meeting. Please give the completed card to the usher when you are recognized to address the meeting.
To ensure as many shareholders as possible who want to address the meeting today have the opportunity to do so, we ask you to follow these additional instructions. If you would like to address the meeting, move to a reserved aisle seat, remain seated, and raise your hand holding the speaker identification card to indicate to the chairman that you would wish to speak. When recognized by the chairman, give your completed speaker card to the usher and a microphone will be provided. Please stand and begin by stating your name. Unless otherwise provided in these rules, you may speak up to two minutes. Due to the large number of items on today's agenda and the need to conclude the meeting within a reasonable period of time, we cannot assure that every shareholder who wishes to speak will be able to do so.
First priority will be given to those who have not yet had an opportunity to speak. As we've done in the past, we have provided a timing system with lights that will help speakers manage their time. I'd like to demonstrate the system at this point. When the chairman recognizes the speaker and a microphone has been provided to the usher, a green light will come on at the displays on both sides of the stages. All microphones will be activated only after the speaker has been recognized by the chairman. When the speaker's time remaining reaches 30 seconds, the yellow light will turn on. A red light will indicate the speaker is at the end of the time allowed. Finally, as we typically note at the outset of similar meetings, I'd like to draw your attention to our cautionary statement that's shown on this slide.
This statement contains information regarding today's presentation and discussion. You may also refer to our website at exxonmobil.com for additional information on factors affecting future results, as well as supplemental information defining key terms that we'll use throughout the meeting today. Now I'd like to turn the podium back to the chairman to provide an overview of the business. Thank you.
Thank you, Jeff. We'll shortly address our items of business. First, I really do look forward every year to sharing with you some of the highlights from the past year, our 2014 financial and operating results. To provide you a very, very brief update on our annual Outlook for Energy, which as all of you know, is available on the website and through our publications. Finally, the details and key elements of our integrated business. On the screen behind me, we're showcasing one of our significant achievements, the LNG project in Papua New Guinea. This picture shows the jetty where chilled natural gas is loaded onto world-class LNG vessels for shipment to the market. The natural gas itself is produced from fields up in the highlands of Papua New Guinea.
In this picture, you can see a drilling rig atop a mountain overlying the Hides gas field, which is the principal resource supplying gas to the project. This rig is located at an elevation of 9,000 feet. From here, the gas flows through a 400-mile pipeline down some extremely rugged terrain to the LNG plant, which is located on the coast, onto the LNG vessels, which deliver clean burning gas to growing markets in Asia. The successful startup of this venture once again demonstrates our unique capabilities in resource development, particularly in extremely challenging environments. It was only made possible by our highly talented and dedicated employees and the contractors who assist us. Folks, this is ExxonMobil. It's what we do. Let me begin with the key messages we want to leave you with today.
ExxonMobil's strategy and competitive advantages enable us to create value throughout the business cycle. Regardless of the business environment, we remain focused on the fundamentals. We take a disciplined, selective, and long-term approach to investing in attractive opportunities that are accretive to our financial results. This has positioned us to grow higher value production and products from our integrated businesses. As a result, ExxonMobil continues to deliver differentiated performance. We lead the industry in return on capital employed, and most importantly, long-term shareholder returns. As characteristic of long-term commodity cycles, the business environment has changed quite dramatically over the past 12 months, with a sharp decrease in crude oil and natural gas prices. The oil and gas business is cyclical, and we have been here before.
Our investment decisions are based on a long-term view informed by our energy outlook, and they are tested across a broad range of economic parameters, including a broad range of commodity prices. However, regardless of the price environment, we remain focused on those things that we control. Our world-class project execution capabilities differentiate us as we consistently deliver large, complex projects on time and on budget. We ensure high operational integrity and relentlessly pursue the lowest cost structure, not just when we're at the bottom of the cycle. We strive to maintain best-in-class reliability and maximize the benefits of our integrated business model. By emphasizing these fundamentals, we deliver leading business results and create value through the cycle. Our 2014 results reflect the strength of our integrated businesses amid global economic challenges, uncertainty, and price volatility.
The safety and health of our employees, contractors, customers, and the people who live in the areas where we operate remain paramount at ExxonMobil. I'm proud to report we achieved our best-ever safety performance in 2014. We employ rigorous environmental management systems and practices to minimize our environmental footprint. Total corporate earnings were $32.5 billion. Our return on average capital employed was an industry-leading 16.2%. We generated $49.2 billion of cash flow from operations and asset sales and selectively invested $38.5 billion back into the business. Total shareholder distributions were $23.6 billion from dividends and share purchases to reduce shares outstanding. Our proved reserves replacement ratio was 104%, marking the 21st consecutive year we've added more oil and natural gas reserves than we produced. Risk management is at the core of our business. Everything we do has an element of risk, whether technical, operational, financial, geopolitical, or environmental.
We have a systematic approach guided by our operations integrity management system, well known as OIMS. This system helps us manage safety, security, health, and environmental risk. OIMS guides the activities of our employees and contractors to achieve excellence in our operational performance. It is applied to all work processes at all levels, so everyone is expected to operate the same way every day, everywhere in the world. OIMS begins with leadership. We focus on clearly defined policies to reinforce accountability, set expectations, measure our performance, and recognize our progress. Bottom line, OIMS helps us sustain superior operational performance, achieve continuous improvement, and ultimately maintain our license to operate. Let's now look at our safety performance. ExxonMobil's approach to business operations and corporate citizenship is built upon a commitment to integrity in everything we do. Nowhere is that more evident than our commitment to safe operations.
With a continued emphasis on both personnel and process safety. As the chart shows, our workforce safety performance for both employees and contractors continues to improve and remains strong in the industry. We are focused on identification and prevention of higher consequence events that could potentially result in serious injuries or environmental damage. This approach enables us to prioritize efforts as we continue to improve our performance. We are committed to our vision of nobody gets hurt and know that effectively managing risk every day, everywhere, will enable us to achieve this vision. Let's now look at environmental performance. At ExxonMobil, we recognize that meeting the world's growing need for energy while protecting the environment is one of society's grand challenges. We're committed to minimizing our environmental impact. Throughout our operations, we carefully identify, assess, manage, and monitor environmental risk with a specific focus on reducing emissions, releases, and consumption.
Even though global energy demand and our operational footprint are expanding, the chart highlights how our systematic approach has provided sustainable improvements, including improved energy efficiency from increased cogeneration capacity, lower emissions, and reduced freshwater consumption. We engage with our stakeholders along the way and apply adaptive management to modify our approaches as appropriate. We're taking specific actions to actively reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As shown on this chart, ExxonMobil has reduced or avoided emissions by 11 million tons over the past five years. This is equivalent to taking more than 2 million cars off of the road in the U.S. At the operational level, we work to lower greenhouse gas emissions by increasing energy efficiency and minimizing flaring and venting over the short term. We implement proven reduction technologies in the medium term, and we're progressing breakthrough game-changing technologies that we hope will serve us in the future.
Exxon continues to lead our peer group with earnings of $32.5 billion last year. Earnings were essentially flat with 2013 amid lower crude oil prices. These challenging industry conditions were mitigated by the value derived from our integrated business model. We also benefited from higher margin volumes growth in the upstream and ongoing portfolio management activities. ExxonMobil's return on capital employed continues to outperform our peers. In 2014, ROCE of 16.2% was more than five percentage points higher than our nearest competitor. Over the past five years, ROCE averaged 21%, again, about five percentage points higher than the next best competitor. Our sustained leadership in capital efficiency reflects our proven model, which combines a disciplined investment approach, best-in-class project development capabilities, and innovative technologies to grow a well-balanced and integrated portfolio.
Our current asset mix and new investments position the corporation for long-term performance across a broad range of market conditions. Another measure of the value created by the business is the cash flow remaining after fully funding investments. The corporation generated nearly $18 billion of free cash flow in 2014, up more than $7 billion from 2013. This growth reflects our strong financial and operating performance, as well as our disciplined capital allocation approach. Over the past five years, ExxonMobil generated $117 billion of free cash flow after investing in attractive business opportunities. These funds exceeded the average free cash flow for competitors during the period and supported our reliable and growing dividend and our industry-leading shareholder distributions. As you can see on this chart, our shareholder distributions also led the industry over the last five years.
ExxonMobil distributed $23.6 billion to shareholders in 2014 through dividends and the share buyback program for a total cash distribution yield of 5.4%. We continue to grow the dividend with annual dividends per share up 55% from 2010 to 2014. As recently announced, the board of directors approved a further 5.8% increase despite the low current price environment, demonstrating confidence in our successful business model. On average, $0.46 of every dollar generated by the business over the last five years has been distributed to you, our shareholders, which is almost double the nearest competitor. Our dividend payments are made with a view to building long-term shareholder value and providing reliable dividend growth throughout the business cycle. As the graph illustrates, our long-term dividend growth rate exceeds the broader market index.
We have increased our dividend 33 consecutive years, including this year's second quarter increase of $0.04 to $0.73 per share. Over the past 10 years, quarterly dividends have increased an average of 10% per year. Share purchases are an efficient and flexible way of returning cash to our shareholders. In 2014, distributions to shareholders through share purchases were $12 billion. Since the merger of Exxon and Mobil, we have reduced total shares outstanding by 40%, including the impact of shares issued to purchase XTO in 2010. Over this period, total shareholder distributions were $342 billion. To put that number in perspective, 495 of the S&P 500 companies have a market value lower than this amount. This photo is of the Shanghai skyline, and it's meant to illustrate that economic progress is occurring all around the world.
ExxonMobil's Outlook for Energy provides our long-term view of global energy demand and supply, which underpins our company's business strategies and our investments. These investments help us provide the world with the reliable, affordable energy necessary to advance economic prosperity and improve living standards well into the future. By the year 2040, the world's population is expected to increase to nine billion people. Along with that, we expect significant growth and a dramatic expansion of the middle class. As a result, ExxonMobil's 2015 Outlook for Energy forecasts demand for energy will grow by about 35%. Non-OECD nations, shown in the blue on the chart, are expected to drive growth in GDP and account for all growth in energy use. By 2040, almost 70% of energy demand will come from these non-OECD nations. The world's middle class is expected to increase by three billion people, essentially all from the non-OECD countries.
Even so, energy use per capita in non-OECD nations will remain well below that of the developed part of the world. The demand outlook for OECD nations, shown in red, highlights the large-scale impact of energy efficiency. GDP in these countries is expected to grow 80% by 2040. However, energy demand is likely to remain essentially flat as expanded use of energy-efficient technologies and practices leads to significant energy savings. Without these efficiency gains, we estimate global demand growth would be about four times our projected 35%. Along with population growth and human progress, we expect the energy landscape to continue to evolve. As history has shown, technology advances, availability of resources, and growing trade will shape the future. Today, oil, gas, and coal are the most widely used fuels, providing about 80% of global supplies.
Looking forward, we expect oil will remain the leading energy source. Natural gas will surpass coal to become the second largest. Together, oil and natural gas will meet about 60% of global energy demand in the year 2040. Oil use will grow on higher demand from the transportation sector, particularly to support heavy-duty and commercial vehicular growth. Oil demand will also be supported by its continued role in providing essential feedstocks to the chemical sector. Natural gas demand will increase more than any other energy type, driven by rising power generation and industrial uses. Natural gas is well recognized as a reliable, affordable, and cleaner fuel for a wide range of uses. This growth is supported by advanced technologies that are unlocking abundant resources and supporting even more efficient uses. Our demand projections anticipate that government policies will impose rising costs on carbon dioxide emissions.
These policies should provide a tailwind in the growth of energy types with low carbon intensity, including nuclear, solar, wind, and hydropower. Our view reflects the reality that abundant energy enables modern life. Greater access to affordable energy will remain fundamental to reducing poverty and advancing living standards for billions of people around the world. To sustain progress and further expand prosperity, the world must increase the availability of reliable and affordable energy supplies. Meeting global energy demand growth will require diverse energy supplies from conventional sources to deep water, unconventional oil and natural gas sources, and liquefied natural gas. They will also range to include nuclear and the renewables. We should pursue all economic opportunities.
Technology advances will help minimize our environmental footprint and expand our energy options by unlocking previously unrecoverable or uneconomic reservoirs, like what we have recently seen with the North American shale revolution, and by defining new alternative and cost-effective solutions. Access to high-quality resources and substantial investments remain fundamental to maintaining the growth in oil and natural gas demand. Equally critical is our ability to develop resources of supply both safely and responsibly. Free markets supported by sound and predictable public policies remain vital to future energy developments. This includes policies that promote free and open trade and encourage private sector investment. Over the next few slides, I'll provide a business and operational update, which demonstrates how we're creating shareholder value through the business cycle.
An example is shown in the photo before you of our unconventional shale oil operations in the Permian, where we have ramped up activities to unlock additional resource value in this high potential legacy basin. ExxonMobil provides industry leadership to meet the world's energy needs. Key elements of our strategy are shown on this chart. Our approach has been consistent for decades. Through systematic implementation and continuous improvement, these elements have become resilient competitive advantages. As mentioned earlier, risk management and operational excellence are at the very core of our business activities. Investment and cost discipline, along with our project execution capabilities, result in the best asset mix in the industry. We continuously seek to high-grade our portfolio in thoughtful ways through acquisitions and divestments. As I'll discuss on the next slide, we capture significant benefits from the integration of our businesses.
Our technology leadership drives innovation and new solutions, and our talented workforce consistently delivers premier results. Our employees are the best of the best, and their dedication, competency, and ingenuity produce the results I share with you today. Bottom line, we are delivering on our commitments, achieving differentiated performance, and growing shareholder value. ExxonMobil's business integration is a competitive advantage that is not easily replicated. Our businesses work together by sharing knowledge, insights, and best practices across the entire value chain. This collaboration leads to better informed decisions, higher quality investments, and more efficient operations. As a result, our investments are resilient throughout their life cycles. Our diverse asset base provides market optionality and operational flexibility. Through our integrated portfolio, we identify and capture upside along the value chain from the wellhead all the way to the consumer.
We also capture significant cost savings through economies of scale enabled by our integrated organizational structure, shared research and development programs and technologies, shared services, and importantly, common best practices. As I mentioned, ExxonMobil remains committed to investing in attractive opportunities through the normal ups and downs of business cycles. In 2015, we expect to spend about $34 billion, or $4.5 billion less than last year. This plan reflects lower upstream project spending as we continue to bring a number of major projects onto production. Downstream and chemical spending plans reflect unique opportunities to strengthen that part of our portfolio. CapEx in 2016 and 2017 is expected to average something less than the $34 billion per year, and we continue to draw on a robust inventory of very high-quality opportunities.
By selectively investing through the cycle, we are capturing cost savings today and expect further bottom of cycle efficiencies from lower rig rates, commodity prices, and construction cost, all of which positions ExxonMobil for better financial returns. Next, I want to review our upstream business. By capturing the highest quality resources through opportunity pursuit, these new captures add to our 92 billion oil equivalent barrel resource base, which is the largest and most diverse of anyone in the industry. The graphic depicts the diversity of our regional maturity. Simply put, our large resource base gives us flexibility to select and develop only the most attractive projects. We deploy our project development expertise and operational excellence to generate the greatest possible returns in a safe, secure, and responsible manner. We maximize profitability of existing portfolio by emphasizing productivity, efficiency, and operational integrity.
Development and application of high impact proprietary technologies remains a competitive advantage that runs across the full life cycle phase of our assets. Let's now move to opportunity growth. As shown on the map, we are pursuing a diverse set of new high quality resource opportunities to selectively add to our resource base. We hold more than 130 from underexplored regions with higher risk, higher reward potential to the more established lower risk basins close to existing infrastructure. Our broad approach to the pursuit of new opportunities balances risk with reward, along with short cycle and longer lead time developments. Let's take a look at our recent progress. As shown by the red squares on the map, we recently captured 17 new opportunities and high quality acreage, gaining exposure to multiple plays in established areas as well as new emerging basins.
The yellow stars mark the 13 discoveries we made in 2014, which contributed to total resource base additions of 3.2 billion oil equivalent barrels. Our by-the-bit resource additions have averaged approximately 2 billion oil equivalent barrels per year over the last decade. The black dots illustrate our planned 2015 drilling, which spans the globe, including opportunities in the Americas, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. ExxonMobil has an extensive project portfolio of 120 projects to develop 24 billion oil equivalent barrels. This vast portfolio supports investment selectivity, we choose only the best. The map shows the wide range of resource development opportunities around the world.
These projects are at varying stages of development, including those under construction, like Hebron in Eastern Canada, projects that are in the front-end design stage, like the Golden Pass LNG facility on the U.S. Gulf Coast, and projects where we're working to expand development around existing infrastructure, such as at the Papua New Guinea LNG facility. ExxonMobil remains on track to deliver 4.3 million barrels per day of production in 2017. As you can see on the chart, higher margin growth from major projects, shown in dark and light red, and U.S. onshore development activity in green more than offset the base decline in our larger production. We continue to progress the multiyear startup of 32 major projects between 2012 and 2017, representing an unprecedented level of investment in high-quality, long-life resources.
Half of these projects were brought online by the end of last year, including Usan in Nigeria, Papua New Guinea LNG, and Arkutun-Dagi Offshore Sakhalin Island in Russia. All of these projects combined are adding working interest capacity. We plan to start up another 16 projects by the end of 2017, including projects in the U.S., Indonesia, Angola, and the United Arab Emirates. We continue to profitably grow our U.S. onshore liquids production by selective investment in high-quality acreage. We completed a record eight major projects last year demonstrating our technical and resource development capabilities. In total, we added more than 250,000 barrels equivalent per day of working interest capacity. Three examples are shown in the photos. The Papua New Guinea LNG project I mentioned earlier started up in April, several months ahead of schedule, reaching full operating capacity in July of last year.
Arkutun-Dagi and Cold Lake Nabiye were completed towards the end of 2014 and are ramping up production, adding additional high-margin volumes to the portfolio. Our 2015 to 2017 projects highlight the geographic and resource diversity of our portfolio and will add more than 700,000 oil equivalent barrels per day of capacity from North America to Southeast Asia and Australia to Africa and the Middle East. Also consistent with our energy demand growth projects, we are investing across resource types, including conventional resources, deepwater resources, the Arctic, liquefied natural gas, and the oil sands. On the next two slides in West Africa deepwater projects. Banyu Urip is a significant oil development onshore Indonesia. The project is developing 450 million barrels of oil through an onshore central processing facility and utilizing a 60-mile pipeline to a floating storage and offloading vessel offshore in the Java Sea.
Banyu Urip is currently producing 75,000 barrels of oil per day through an early production system, capturing current value and reservoir performance learnings before the central processing facility starts up in the middle of this year. The project is anticipated to reach full production capacity of 200,000 barrels a day by late next year. In West Africa, ExxonMobil is building upon its extensive deepwater expertise to maximize the value of existing assets with expansion projects in Erha in Nigeria and Kizomba in Angola. Both projects are capital-efficient subsea tiebacks to existing large FPSOs and are expected to deliver 360 million barrels of oil. At Erha North Phase 2, our experience in the region helped deliver project efficiencies through the design and execution phases. Drilling is ongoing, the project is anticipated to start up toward the end of this year. Kizomba Satellites Phase 2 is another capital-efficient development.
The design, fabrication, and installation methods for Phase 2 are consistent with our design one, build multiple approach to development concepts. This reduces capital costs and improves economic returns. The project started up in March and continues to ramp up to full capacity. Onshore here in the U.S., we are growing higher margin production from our core liquids plays. In the Permian Basin, we are capturing the upside of a vast legacy leasehold position that now exceeds 1.5 million net acres. We grew volumes by 15% in 2014, largely driven by optimization activities on our conventional Central Basin Platform properties. Future growth will be driven by unconventional pursuits in the Wolfcamp, where the application of horizontal drilling, combined with hydraulic fracturing, enables commercial production from a large area that was previously uneconomic. In the Bakken in North Dakota, we increased net production by 38% last year.
In Southern Oklahoma, we are delineating the Marietta and continue to develop our core Ardmore acreage. Our U.S. onshore portfolio is resilient. The quality and scale of our resources in these core plays deliver attractive returns in the current price environment as well as through the cycle. We have been measured in our approach and have paced activities to fully integrate learnings into forward development activities. We're driving down costs and increasing recovery through optimized completions, pad developments, and effective deployment of proprietary technologies. ExxonMobil is also building upon a strong global position to meet growing LNG demand. This map shows our global portfolio and new project opportunities. ExxonMobil is a leading player in the development of the LNG industry through our existing equity interest in approximately 69 million tons per year of gross operating capacity in Qatar and Papua New Guinea.
We also participate in 15.6 million tons per year of new LNG capacity being added by the Gorgon-Jansz project in Australia. As shown by the red dots, we are progressing a number of exciting new opportunities to expand our portfolio, capitalizing on our experience, our technological capabilities, and our knowledge of LNG markets. As you know, ExxonMobil also has a world-class downstream in chemicals business. We are one of the largest integrated refiners in the world, a premier marketer of fuels and lubes, and the largest manufacturer of lubes base stocks. We are one of the largest chemical companies in the world, we're the most profitable integrated downstream in chemical business in the industry. The foundation of this success is our commitment to operational excellence, ranging from safety and environmental performance to reliability and asset utilization. ExxonMobil strives to be flawless in each of these areas.
We build on this strong foundation of disciplined operations with a relentless focus on efficiencies, margin improvement, and attractive investments. We are selectively investing to improve feedstock flexibility, grow our volumes of high-value products, drive energy efficiency, and increase our logistics capabilities. As shown on this chart, we are progressing a diverse and balanced portfolio of attractive downstream and chemical investments around the world. Projects in North America, Europe, Saudi Arabia, China, and Singapore are scheduled for startup between now and 2017. These investments capitalize on ExxonMobil's technology leadership, scale, and integration, and they position us to continue to outperform competition across the business cycle. Let me provide you additional insights on some of these projects, which are focused on strategic assets. In 2014, we commissioned the Clean Fuels Project at our joint venture SAMREF refinery in Saudi Arabia.
This investment increases the supply of low sulfur gasoline and diesel in the kingdom. We also completed expansions of lube basestock capacity at our facilities in Singapore and Baytown, Texas. These investments enable us to capture high-value finished lubricants demand growth. In Canada, commissioning is underway at the Edmonton Rail Terminal, a 50/50 joint venture between Imperial Oil and Kinder Morgan. The terminal will provide logistics flexibility to support efficient, cost-effective market access for our growing Canadian oil sands production and enable us to deliver additional advantaged crude to our refining systems throughout North America. In Saudi Arabia, we are working with our joint venture partner to build a first-of-its-kind specialty elastomers facility. With startup anticipated in 2015, the project will help meet the growing demand for synthetic rubber-based automotive products.
We're also building a world-scale, 1.5 million ton per year ethylene plant and two associated polyethylene product lines at our complexes on the Gulf Coast in Texas. These capital-efficient brownfield investments will convert low-cost ethane to a mixed slate of higher value products, including premium metallocene polyethylene. Startup is expected in 2017. In Belgium, we're building on our competitive cost position at our Antwerp refinery. We recently started construction of a coker unit to help meet growing demand for cleaner transportation fuels by converting lower value fuel oil into higher value ultra-low sulfur diesel. Our downstream and chemical businesses deliver a return on capital employed that outperforms the competition across the business cycle. During the last five years, these businesses generated almost $50 billion of earnings.
In the current market environment, they are resilient to lower commodity prices and continue to generate solid cash flow, helping us to deliver on our commitments to you. Our superior financial performance is driven by our proven business strategies and our ongoing competitive advantages. Altogether, we have the best performing downstream and chemical businesses in the industry, and we're well positioned to maintain our lead in the years to come. Central to our strengths and competitive advantages is a steadfast commitment to operate with the highest standards of ethical behavior and corporate citizenship, building strong relationships with the customers we serve and the communities where we operate, as I'll discuss on the next slide. ExxonMobil has many responsibilities to our shareholders, to our neighbors, to our customers, and to our communities. We strive to be a responsible corporate citizen.
As I indicated earlier, safety and environmental protection are fundamental to the success of our business. We must maintain the integrity of our operations as an imperative to our license to operate. Our business presence serves as a significant economic contributor in the communities where we live and work. We continue to make substantial progress in hiring host country workers, which advances local economic development as well as education. We also promote social development in our communities. Last year, we invested $120 million advancing the corporation's signature programs: promoting women as catalysts for economic development, fighting malaria, and improving education. We continue to make a difference through volunteering. Nearly 20,000 employees, retirees, and their families donated more than 645,000 hours to almost 5,000 charitable organizations in 34 countries around the world last year.
As we've said for many years, financial results and stock market returns, particularly for highly capital intensive industries like ours, are best viewed over a long time horizon. An industry like ours requires sustainable risk management of cash and capital and long cycle times for investments to deliver results. ExxonMobil has generated greater shareholder returns than the broader market and greater returns than the average of our competitors over the 10 and 20 year periods. These superior returns reflect our sustained financial and operating advantages that position us to maximize shareholder value. I'll leave you with a few final thoughts that recap what we've reviewed in this brief presentation. First, ExxonMobil is well positioned to provide industry leadership to meet the world's growing energy needs. We are delivering on our commitments and we are achieving differentiated performance.
Our strategy, competitive advantages, high quality assets, and exceptional investment opportunities provide the foundation for superior long term shareholder returns and will help supply the energy needed to fuel global economic growth and prosperity. I'll pause now for a moment and would like for you to view a pair of videos that you've probably already seen on TV.
You don't need to think about the energy that makes our lives possible because we do. We're ExxonMobil. Empowering the world responsibly is our job. Boiling an egg isn't as simple as just boiling an egg. Life takes energy. Energy lives here.
Who's going to do it?
Who's going to make it happen?
Discover a new energy source?
Turn ocean waves into power, design cars that capture emissions.
Build bridges that fix themselves. Give more clean water to everyone. Who's going to take the leap?
Who's going to write the code?
Who's going to do it? Engineers.
That's who.
That's what I want to do.
Be an engineer. Join the scientists and engineers of ExxonMobil in inspiring America's future engineers. Energy lives here.
Oh, to be young again. I'd like to turn to the formal business of the meeting. To begin, let me make a few brief remarks on shareholder proposals and voting. Each year, the corporation receives a number of suggestions from shareholders. Some of these are in the form of proposals to be presented at the annual meeting, and each is given careful consideration. We seek to dialogue with the sponsors prior to the meeting when there's more time to better understand each other and exchange views, and we often find agreement. Let me be clear on the conduct of the meeting. Recognizing that the majority of our shareholders have voted by proxy and are not present, we have established procedures to facilitate an orderly meeting. We've set up a process for speakers to identify themselves and express their views, and I assure you, we welcome those views.
In order that as many shareholders as possible can participate, we have set time limits and a system of reminders to help speakers manage their time. We have 11 items to consider. As Secretary Woodbury said earlier, discussion on all items of business will be deferred to the discussion period. This will enable us to have some time for general comments and questions as well, and conclude the meeting at a reasonable time. For those of you who wish to leave the meeting at any time, let me express my appreciation for your attendance. Since we have a number of items yet to be discussed on the program, and you've now been sitting for a little while, I invite any of you to take a moment to stand in place, stretch your legs, get a little circulation going. I ask that you not leave the hall.
We'll resume in just a moment. If you'd please, take your seats. The first item of business is the election of 12 directors. I nominate the 12 persons identified on pages 17 through 20 of the proxy statement. These 12 people are highly qualified to serve on your board. All of our nominees are currently serving as ExxonMobil directors, except for Mr. Oberhelman, who has been nominated by the board for first election as a director today. Now I'll take a moment and ask the nominees to stand to my right in the orchestra terrace as I call their names, then I'll close the nominations. Michael Boskin. Ursula Burns. Larry Faulkner. Jay Fishman. Henrietta Fore. Kenneth Frazier. Douglas Oberhelman. Sam Palmisano. Steve Reinemund. William Weldon. In addition, Peter Brabeck is also standing for election. He was unable to attend today's meeting.
Before moving on, I also want to recognize one person who is retiring from the board today. Bill George has served as your director of your company since 2005, and we thank Bill for his service. Bill, would you please stand? I declare the polls open for all who want to vote in the election of directors and the 10 remaining items. If you wish to change your proxy instructions on the election of directors or any of the other 10 items, or if you have not submitted a proxy and wish to vote by 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 will be collected after all items have been discussed. The next item on the agenda is the ratification of PricewaterhouseCoopers as the independent auditors.
The audit committee of the board has appointed PricewaterhouseCoopers to audit ExxonMobil's financial statements for 2015, and we're asking shareholders to ratify that appointment. PricewaterhouseCoopers is represented today by Mr. Alan Page. Alan, would you please stand? Thank you. The audit committee's reasons for recommending PricewaterhouseCoopers appear in the proxy statement. I move the adoption of the proposal shown on page 60 of the proxy statement. The next order of business is consideration of the board-sponsored proposal regarding executive compensation. The board proposal calls for a shareholder advisory vote to approve executive compensation as required by law. The board recommends a vote for this proposal as outlined on pages 61 to 63 of the proxy statement. The next order of business is consideration of the eight shareholder proposals in the proxy statement.
The first shareholder proposal regarding an independent chairman is shown on page 63 and 64 of the proxy statement. I understand that Don Kirshbaum will present the proposal. Mr. Kirshbaum.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm Don Kirshbaum, here to move the resolution on behalf of the sponsor, the Higgins Trust, which calls for an independent chair of the board. I'd like to also thank you. I've been working with ExxonMobil over the past 15 years in numerous dialogues during my tenure working for Connecticut Treasurer Denise Nappier, and retired there two and a half years ago and continue to be interested and work with investors with ExxonMobil on a number of issues. On the resolution of ExxonMobil's 2015 Outlook for Energy documents significant changes that are coming in the production and use of energy. The future of energy in the 21st century will be very different than that of the past. There are three resolutions on today's proxy that address the structure of the board of directors.
This one calling for an independent chair, proxy access resolution, and a resolution requiring environmental expertise on the board. Shareholders are introducing these resolutions because we believe that the board of directors, whose current members and backgrounds and expertise are extraordinary, needs a change in the orientation more toward independent thinking to guide ExxonMobil through this accelerating transition. This includes the need for an independent board chair who can oversee ExxonMobil as it continues to produce the results for shareholders in this changing environment. Specifically to the resolution, it's important to emphasize that this resolution is not a criticism of ExxonMobil or our chairman, Rex Tillerson. It is a request for the company institute what is widely considered a best practice. The resolution requests the policy of a separate independent chair be phased in for when a new CEO is eventually chosen for the future.
Numerous investors believe that an independent chair improves the company's focus on governance matters and strengthens the accountability to shareholders. There are at least three ways which this resolution can help the company move forward. The board is responsible for hiring and firing the CEO as well as deciding its compensation. Therefore, there is a potential conflict of interest if the chair is supervising himself or overseeing his or her own performance. Secondly, having a CEO chair the board meetings may allow the CEO to exercise undue influence over the board and the agenda and the discussion, and therefore diminish the role of the independent board members. Third, both the role of CEO and the role of board chair are hugely time-intensive jobs.
A separate chair allows the division of labor, which frees up the time for our CEO to focus on running the company and building effective business strategies, while allowing the board to focus on providing independent oversight. Finally, we'd like to point out that many companies have separate chair and/or independent chair. In 2014, 46% of the S&P 500 companies had boards not chaired by the CEO. In addition, it is more typical in Europe, for example, to have a separate chair and CEO. On behalf of the Higgins Trust, we'd like to thank you for the time and move the resolution.
Thank you, Mr. Kirschbaum. The board recommends a vote against this proposal as outlined on page 64 of the proxy statement. The next shareholder proposal for a proxy access bylaw is shown on pages 64 and 65 of the proxy statement. I understand that James Andrus will present the proposal. Mr. Andrus.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I am James Andrus from CalPERS. I am here to present Proposal Five on behalf of New York City Comptroller Scott Stringer and the trustees of the New York City Pension Funds. The New York City Pension Funds are long-term ExxonMobil shareholders with 9,298,740 shares. Proposal Five calls for a proxy access bylaw to enable shareholders that have collectively held at least 3% of the company for three years to include a limited number of director candidates on management's proxy card. The proposed bylaw is designed to give substantial long-term shareholders a meaningful voice in nominating and electing directors. ExxonMobil received this proposal due to its exposure to risks related to climate change. As Lord Browne, the former CEO of BP, warned in a speech last year, extractive industries need to take climate change more seriously or face an existential threat to their business.
This requires directors who are independent, accountable, and have a diverse mix of relevant skills, experience, and perspectives. While ExxonMobil received this proposal because of climate risk concerns, we believe proxy access is a fundamental right that should be in place at all companies, regardless of their performance and overall governance. Absent meaningful proxy access, the director election process simply becomes a ratification of management's nominees. A 2014 report by the CFA Institute found that proxy access, if adopted market-wide, has the potential to raise U.S. market capitalization by as much as $140 billion. The proposed bylaw includes appropriate safeguards to prevent abuse, including reasonable ownership and holding period requirements. It also includes a 25% limit on shareholder nominees to ensure that it will not facilitate a disruptive change of control. We did not select the proposed terms arbitrarily.
After extensive analysis and public comment, the SEC first determined that the 3% ownership threshold and other included terms were most appropriate. Finally, and most importantly, any shareholder nominee would still have to garner broad shareholder support before he or she could join the board. This year, a growing number of companies in various industries and of various sizes have agreed to adopt proxy access for shareholders that have collectively held 3% for three years. Recent examples include Abercrombie & Fitch, Bank of America, Big Lots, FirstMerit, General Electric, Kindred Healthcare, Prudential Financial, Splunk, Staples, Wendy's, Whiting Petroleum, and Yum! Brands. In response to shareholder engagement, these companies have demonstrated their commitment to an accountable system of corporate governance that fosters long-term value creation. On behalf of both the New York City Pension Funds and CalPERS, I urge the ExxonMobil Board to do the same.
Today, we urge shareholders to join us in supporting Proposal 3. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Andrus. The board recommends a vote against this proposal, as outlined on pages 65 and 66 of the proxy statement. The next shareholder proposal calls for the addition of a climate expert to the board and is shown on page 66 of the proxy statement. I understand that Father Michael Crosby will present the proposal. Father Crosby.
Good morning, Mr. Tillerson and shareholders. My name is Michael Crosby. I'm a Capuchin Franciscan brother from Milwaukee, I'd just like to put in context of my remarks what we just heard. Not one word about climate change. Not one word of the $34 billion that are going into investments in anything that's an alternative investment, when even Saudi Arabia last week indicated that they see a solar future for their country. The weaning has to begin yesterday, 18 years ago, when we first raised this issue. Other years, Mr. Tillerson, you at least addressed the topic of climate change and alternatives. There wasn't one word or syllable related to it.
Silence speaks volumes on this, which means this company is continuing business as usual when its competitors are at least giving lip service to the reality of climate change and the need. The board is overseeing this. We are very happy that you are talking with us, with your people. Every December, CalPERS, different big pension funds, us at the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility, meet together in New York. We hear what you're saying about the future energy needs and demands. It's true. It's fossil fuel-driven, it can't remain fossil fuel-driven. This company has to be making plans for the future. We wrote a shareholder resolution asking for somebody on the board to have expertise on climate change. The company went to the Securities and Exchange Commission and tried to disallow you from voting on this shareholder resolution.
They tried to keep it from you. They said, "Well, the board has expertise." They gave you the criteria. There are scientists. The closest anybody on that board, to my knowledge, has any expertise is Mr. Faulkner, which has some chemistry background. Running IBM or Xerox does not run an energy company that's based on fossil fuels where everything is showing we've got to wean ourselves from it. It's short-term success, long-term question. We say, "Please do something about it." The Harvard Business Review had an article about board directors, and it had three points in the March. Boards should have the right to manage the company for the long term. The second point, boards should install mechanisms to ensure the best possible people in the boardroom.
Our resolution is asking for the best possible person with climate expertise to bring to the rest of the board members and to management that expertise, because there's nothing independent that we're getting except from management. Management won't let us talk to the board. We need somebody on that board with the expertise. If you voted against us, I really ask you to consider. It's a simple request. Let's get an expert on the board to deal with a critical question. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Father Crosby. The board recommends a vote against this proposal, as outlined on page 67 of the proxy statement. The next shareholder proposal calls for a quota for women on the board and is shown on page 67 of the proxy statement. I understand that Tom Sifferman will present the proposal. Mr. Sifferman.
Thank you. Tom Sifferman, PhD, PE, a Mobil retiree. Last year, I suggested the board add more females and nothing happened. I'm here this year with a proposal. The proposal is based on having more women on the board of directors. Study by Catalyst showed that Fortune 500 companies with three or more women in their boards outperformed those with no women on their boards. Similarly, Wellesley College showed that three women are necessary for a critical mass to be heard and have any significant influence. Previously, in 2002, 2003, Mobil had three females. Unfortunately, it went down to one or two after that, and we only have two right now, which is 17%. That's not as good as 25%. Two companies actually in the S&P 500 have seven female directors, one with 64%, another with 47%. It's possible.
Mobil should therefore increase the female directors from 2 to 3 by May 2016 and to 4 by 2018. Mobil notes in the rebuttal, 3 of the 6 new director appointments were for gender and diversity. Actually, 2 were for just gender. 1 was for ethnic diversity. ExxonMobil also notes in the rebuttal that 2 is the average number of females on the board of directors. Don't we want to be outstanding rather than average? ExxonMobil currently has 2 females, as I said, which is 17%. We really need to add more to the list. Other companies have added more, and they do better because females bring a different perspective to things. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Sifferman. The board recommends a vote against this proposal, as outlined on page 68 of the proxy statement. The next shareholder proposal calls for a report on compensation for women and is shown on page 68 of the proxy statement. I understand, Mr. Sifferman, that you will also present this proposal.
Yes. This proposal is by Eve Strunt, one of my former coworkers at Mobil. She's in California, so she asked me to present it for her on her behalf. She wants to congratulate ExxonMobil for having steps developed leadership opportunities for women. There's proof in the numbers. Women, on the average, only earn 78% of what men do. Progress has stalled on the average increase, less than 3% in the last decade, for which data is available for comparison, with increases of 7% or more per decade from 1973 through 1993. Numerous studies in multiple occupations show continuing existence of subtle prejudice in evaluation of women's accomplishments and performance. Greater transparency is needed in regard to compensation. Very important to see the statistics on how women are doing in terms of compensation.
Instead of reporting % of women in management, % of women executives, it's not the same as what they are being paid, what the compensation is. If ExxonMobil is doing well, they should be proud to release this information. Strong performance by ExxonMobil should make ExxonMobil an attractive employer for these women also, so there's double benefit there. As a shareholder, we would be pleased to have ExxonMobil release data showing they are among the best. We are among the best at a lot of things, as you've shown today. Let's be among the best with having women compensation. If performance of Mobil is good, show further evidence, ability to attract and retain top talent. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.
Thank you, Mr. Sifferman. The board recommends a vote against this proposal, as outlined on pages 68 and 69 of the proxy statement. The next shareholder proposal calls for a report on lobbying and is shown on pages 69 and 70 of the proxy statement. I understand that Shawn Gilchrist will present the proposal. Mr. Gilchrist.
Fellow shareholders and members of the board, my name is Shawn Gilchrist and I'm representing the United Steelworkers Union. I hereby move proposal nine, asking our company to provide a report on its state and federal lobbying expenditures, including the indirect funding of lobbying through trade associations and support for other groups such as ALEC, American Legislative Exchange Council. Transparency and accountability in corporate spending to influence public policy are in the best interests of ExxonMobil shareholders. Without a clear system ensuring accountability, corporate assets can be used to promote public policy objectives which may pose risks to our company and its shareowners. Mr. Chairman, several months ago, USW and our cosponsors had an opportunity to talk with our company's investor relations department, plus your public and government affairs team.
One item that I felt honestly was settled was that the proponents agree that our company should be engaged in the political process through lobbying. Our proposal is not actually an anti-lobbying proposal that would ban or bar ExxonMobil from the halls of Congress. When I read the opposition statement, the first two paragraphs seemed to mischaracterize this point and frame it that way. Our union, USW, we utilize the power of our members as a lobbying force on Capitol Hill. I just felt it was inaccurate to suggest that we only want lobbying to be a one-sided affair. Furthermore, in the last two paragraphs of the opposition statement, it states that our company complies with the state and federal requirements concerning lobbying activities.
That's great and should be commended, despite this commitment to lobbying transparency, our company opposes our proposal and is only providing minimal disclosure around lobbying. We don't disclose trade association memberships and payments, nor the portion of these payments that is used for lobbying. These amounts can be quite large. For example, many companies belong to the Chamber of Commerce, which is consistently the largest lobbying group in Washington, spending more than $300 million in lobbying fees in the last three years. ExxonMobil shareowners currently have no way to know how ExxonMobil's trade association memberships or the contributions are being used to lobby on its behalf. Our request for disclosure is really a call for transparency and accountability in the spending of shareholder resources. We believe disclosure transparency is a safety mechanism for our company and its shareholders. Lobbying is shareholders' money that is being spent.
Shouldn't our company tell us where they are spending it? We urge shareholders to vote for this proposal. Thank you for your time
Thank you, Mr. Gilchrist. The board recommends a vote against this proposal as outlined on page 70 of the proxy statement. The next proposal calls for greenhouse gas emissions goals and is shown on pages 70 and 71 of the proxy statement. I understand that Sister Pat Daly will present the proposal. Sister Pat.
Thank you, Mr. Tillerson. Mr. Woodbury, you're doing a great job for your first meeting. Many thanks. Members of the board. This is really our meeting to talk to the board. Could we have the lights on so we can actually see you? We would love that. Truly, I'm serious.
Yeah, go ahead.
It's only a couple of minutes.
Go ahead and dim the lights.
Shareholders, thank you again for your time today. This resolution is not just brought to you by the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell, New Jersey. There are 45 institutional investors who are bringing this to you, including city and state pension funds around the country. As of last night, more than $1 trillion of asset investment went public in support of this resolution. I've been here for many years. Father Michael Crosby, even longer. He's much older than I. The members of the Interfaith Center on Corporate Responsibility started working on climate change in the late '80s. We've been here, this is, I believe, the eighth time we're presenting this resolution asking for clear goals. Since last year, I believe the world has shifted.
People on this planet, faith leaders, business leaders, investors know that we need to walk away from the Paris climate negotiations in December with a treaty that will lead us in a sustainable direction, rather than to stay on a course of devastation in this world. Investors have shifted. Some have divested of oil and gas stock. More investors are demanding transparency and action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and many of them are funding a new low-carbon economy. Just in the last few weeks, the boards of three of ExxonMobil's peers, BP, Shell, and Statoil, the board members endorsed the shareholder resolutions on climate change and carbon asset risk, underscoring just how material this issue is to the long-term future of the industry. In contrast, the board members of ExxonMobil have continued to rigorously oppose any attempt by shareholders to encourage even greater disclosure than we already get.
We do get disclosure to really set goals. Yesterday, the newsletter for PIRC, Pensions & Investment Research Consultants, is a newsletter out of London. They coined the term transatlantic divide, referencing the resistance of ExxonMobil and Chevron boards to respond to shareholder concerns, in contrast to their peers internationally. This is not a good thing. I am not implying that these companies are dropping, they are not going to be drilling for oil any longer. That is not what is happening. The shareholders got 98% and 99% of the vote. Something is shifting here that we are not up to date on, right? We have spoken for many years about the urgency of climate change. Now is the time to pivot to a low-carbon economy. Most of the 45 co-filers of this resolution and others on today's proxy have considered or have made substantial investment commitments we call climate finance.
These are market-rate investments, not donations or microcredit lending. You can go and look at iccr.org or tricri, T-R-I-C-R-I.org for more information on that. For all of us, these are good investments. We believe Exxon needs a strategy to evolve the business model for a low-carbon economy. If oil analysts, as Father Mike said, even the Saudi oil minister knows that the energy sector cannot rely on oil and gas and must diversify, asking for greenhouse gas emissions reduction goals seems to be a simple and responsible request. Our emissions between 2011 and 2013 increased 3.67%, even as production fell 6.1%. I think those numbers would be different if ExxonMobil had goals. ExxonMobil, that is why we love this company. You set goals. You deliver on your goals.
We certainly appreciate the significant work and expertise that our company invests in its yearly Outlook for Energy and other efforts to understand future trends in global energy markets. It is clear that the company is well-positioned for a future like the one laid out in the Outlook for Energy. What if the Outlook for Energy is different? That is what people are looking at. What if the future is going to be different? We are not going to be prepared.
Could I ask you to sum up, please, Sister Pat?
One more point, this is really about the moral imperative that we're facing. While faith investors have been at this for many years, we know that as we approach the negotiations, faith leaders today have really called upon all peoples around the planet to look at their conscience, figure out their lifestyles, make their investments, and shift. Pope Francis has called on our leaders to take action. This is in every interfaith and every faith community around the planet. At the meeting at the Vatican last month, faith leaders noted that human-induced climate change is a scientific reality, its decisive mitigation is a moral and religious imperative to humanity. We would so much appreciate your support for this resolution. Many thanks for your time, sorry that I went over.
Thank you, Sister Pat. You can restore the lights, please. These lights are very glaring when you're on this side of them, don't want to torture the board too much. The board recommends a vote against this proposal as outlined on page 71 and 72 of the proxy statement. The last shareholder proposal calls for a report on hydraulic fracturing and is shown on pages 72 and 73 of the proxy statement. I understand that Father Michael Crosby will present the proposal. Father Crosby.
Yes, I've been asked by As You Sow on behalf of the Park Foundation to present this resolution because they couldn't be here. I would just like to mention, I'm glad that you went to see the representatives of the Pope as he prepares his encyclical, as was reported in yesterday's The Wall Street Journal. Anyway, this proposal on transparency in the hydraulic fracturing operation was filed in 2013 and got 30% of the vote, that's pretty high. Rather than improving on the transparency, they say that Exxon has become a laggard in demonstrating to shareholders that it is employing the best practices to reduce risk and reduce harms that we all know, except maybe for Texas, more and more states are implementing restrictions, bans related to fracturing.
In face of the environmental and social impact, the public has passed restrictions and moratoria, limiting business opportunities, imposing a wide range of costs on companies from the costs of delays to sometimes complete loss of access to valuable resources, all of which can materially impact investors' holdings. New York and Pennsylvania, which are on top of the Marcellus Shale, have had more than 200 municipalities passing bans or restrictions limiting hydraulic fracturing, with New York being one of the most recent. Outside the U.S., there's bans and moratoria proliferating. Germany put a hold on hydraulic fracturing. Exxon's gas exploration license were therefore put at a risk. Moratoria have been enacted in Texas, where an important fight between local rights and state control is now occurring.
A growing number of companies are responding to these risks by increasing their transparency about the specific actions they will take regarding the impact of their operations. However, we don't get that from Exxon. Instead, it's not providing the kind of quantitative and qualitative information that other companies have begun to provide. This is relying rather on generalities or company-wide reduction measures that lump together actions from operations around the entire world. Therefore, there's nothing that's of meaning at the local level. In the absence of any meaningful quantitative disclosure on an annual basis, shareholders don't have a way to see what Exxon is really doing over time and relative to its peers. We encourage the shareholders to vote in support of proxy item number 11 to increase Exxon's transparency and communication on these important issues. Thanks a lot.
Thank you, Father Crosby. The board recommends a vote against this proposal as outlined on page 73 of the proxy statement. All items of business have now been introduced. I invite any of you that want to stand and stretch your legs again for a minute to do so. For those of you who wish to address the meeting during the discussion period, this would be a good time to move closer to the aisles so you'll be available to a microphone. If you want to stand for a moment. Let's resume the meeting, please. If you would take your seats. I would now open the floor for discussion on the items of business presented, and again would ask that you limit your comments during this segment of our discussion period to the board and shareholder proposals that were in the proxy statement.
I promise you we'll provide some time for other topics that you may want to discuss at the close of this segment. We received a number of questions on proxy cards and through our website. As I mentioned, as time permits, we'll try to address some of those during the general period as well. As I described earlier, if you want to speak, please move to the aisle, if you've not already done so or not already seated nearby. Remain seated, raise your hand, and holding your speaker identification card to indicate that you want to address the meeting. When recognized, give your completed speaker identification card to the usher, and a microphone will be provided. I would ask that you stand and begin by stating your name and the board or shareholder proposal on which you want to comment.
Bear in mind the rules of conduct shown in the program. I would ask that you make your comments as brief as possible so that we can accommodate as many people who wish to address the meeting to do so. We'll continue to use the lighting system to help you manage your time. First priority will be given to those who have not yet had an opportunity to speak, and I would welcome your questions and comments at this time. Right over here.
Thank you very much. I'm Elizabeth Pearce. I'm the State Treasurer in Vermont, and I'm representing the Vermont Pension Investment Commission of VPIC. I want to say thank you. This is my first meeting, and we did get a chance to talk this morning, Mr. Chair. Thank you for your hospitality. I think one of the points I'd like to make about being my first meeting is more and more treasurers and institutional investors are concerned about climate change and getting involved in this, and I think you're going to see more and more involvement from your institutional investors. I do have a statement. First, I have to put the glasses on. I'm a little old here. I am the Treasurer, as I said, of Vermont, and we co-filed item number 10 on the proxy, adopt greenhouse gas reduction goals.
We echo the concerns of Sister Patricia Daly and the Sisters of St. Dominic of Caldwell and the Tri-State Coalition for Responsible Investment. VPIC filed this resolution, and I'm here today because we are a long-term investor in ExxonMobil, and I want to see the company poised to succeed in the long term and to adapt and to operate in a carbon-constrained economy. The threats resulting from climate change are acute, they are global, and they require the efforts of all levels of government, the private sector, and the public at large to make the transition to a low-carbon future. We look forward to working with these various constituencies to realize our sustainability goals related to climate change while providing for the retirement security for the 48,000 active, vested, and retired members of the Vermont pension system. In the state of Vermont, the impacts of climate change are real.
Specifically, our maple syrup industry, skiing industry, and the quality of our rivers, streams, and lakes are at risk with rising temperatures and increasingly volatile weather patterns. As a shareholder and a long-term investor, VPIC believes it is in the best interest of the company and its long-term shareholders for ExxonMobil to examine its practices and to develop goals to drive performance. We believe that clear greenhouse gas emission reduction goals will make Exxon a more competitive, and in turn, protect shareholder value and address climate risk. As a fiduciary of retirement funds, I have an obligation to seriously examine the financial risk to the VPIC portfolio. Climate change poses real financial risk. These risks are embedded in carbon-intensive products.
Climate change is a problem of such magnitude that it requires a strategic shift within the company to become a diversified energy company that considers greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts on all of its products. Clear goals can help drive these decisions. As noted in the resolution, the current management strategy is wholly inadequate in response to the severity of the climate crisis. We urge the company to create a disciplined business strategy with goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. I would urge you to adopt the resolution moved by Sister Patricia Daly and consider developing long-term goals to reduce the emissions of your operations and products. Again, thank you very much for your time. Thanks.
Thank you. Over on this side.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My name is Julian Martinez, and I represent SER - Jobs for Progress, a national nonprofit, community-based organization serving the economic needs of Hispanic Americans. I'd like to speak briefly about ExxonMobil and the Hispanic community and the incredible growth of the Hispanic population in our country. It'll go along with Resolution number seven. There are very qualified Hispanics in the corporate world, and it would be beneficial to ExxonMobil if you could put one of them on your board of directors. We would like you to consider becoming part of the HACR Corporate Inclusion Index. The index takes a comprehensive measurement of the business practices and strategies of participating companies in four areas: employment, procurement, philanthropy, and governance. It then showcases the efforts that have implemented best practices in Hispanic inclusion and identifies areas of opportunity for better success.
As you may know, the Hispanic population is increasing dramatically in the U.S. One out of four children are now Latino, and the number of Latino-owned businesses has grown 44% in a five-year period as compared to 15% for non-Latino firms. The combined Latino population of the U.S. is greater than the total population of Canada and any Latin American country, except Mexico and Brazil. It would be the world's 14th largest economy. 60 Fortune 500 companies participated in the Inclusion Index last year. As the strength of the Hispanic consumer continues to grow, corporate America will soon learn that the Hispanic population is the key to maintaining a competitive advantage and essential for preserving market position. SER National would welcome an opportunity to partner with ExxonMobil to increase the pipeline of Hispanics into the upper ranks of corporate America and to further develop the Hispanic entrepreneur and middle class.
We'd also like to thank you for contributing to our annual conference, which we are currently holding here in Las Colinas. Thank you.
Thank you. Over here to my right.
Good morning. My name is Marilyn Janus. I'm a Dominican Sister. I'm a proxy of the American Baptist Home Mission Societies, and I have a question for you, Mr. Tillerson. I'm conscious of your support of a carbon tax. Will you and ExxonMobil go to the climate negotiations in Paris and support a price on carbon as a sign that business is moving forward?
I don't know that we've determined our participation in Paris. As you stated properly, we identified as a policy option that if governments are going to undertake policies directed at incentivizing consumer behavior and choice, that rather than pursuing other systems that have been tried and we don't think have been particularly successful, such as cap and trade systems or mandated product usage, that a revenue neutral carbon tax would be a more reasonable way in which to pursue influencing consumer behavior. Whether that model works for all nations or not, I think each country, depending upon its system of taxation and revenue generation, would have to determine how that can be accommodated within their system. We believe it is appropriate in the United States if that's where policy ultimately takes us.
Thank you so much.
Over here.
Thank you. I'd like to address items number 4, 5, and 6 and the comments that were made about the leadership of the board and the need for the board to have some expertise to look forward into some of the issues that you're going to be facing. I'm doing this on behalf of Christopher Reynolds Foundation and Stephen Viederman, who's chairman of their finance committee. We'd like to thank you for the ongoing dialogue we've been having on a number of these issues. As recently as last Thursday, where we spent an hour with Mr. Woodbury discussing a number of these issues, and we'd like to thank you for that.
One of the issues that we've been talking about among the many of them is, as you and I were discussing out in the hall before the meeting, energy future is very complex, and a transition is occurring from fossil fuels to other forms of energy. Two years ago, in a speech when you were making in Cleveland, you brought up the issue of what happens if we can't stop climate change, if we can't address some of the issues that we've been talking about. You said we need a plan B. The Outlook for Energy that we all appreciate the amount of work and effort that goes into that every year, if the outlook that you're showing in there does come to pass, we're probably looking at atmospheric concentration of CO2 in the neighborhood of 600 parts per million.
Under that type of scenario, a plan B will be even much more important, but not only for ExxonMobil and its operations, but for the citizens of the world. We know because you're such a well-managed company, that you're thinking about these issues all the time, and we're looking forward to working with you to gin up the ideas and concepts that are out there of what will have to happen if we do get to a climate issue of 600 parts per million. What does it mean for ExxonMobil? What does it mean for the citizens of the world? What is your thinking about what needs to be done? What is plan B? We're looking forward to hearing more of your thinking about that. Thank you.
Your question is a really important question, but you also have to start at the beginning of a conversation around plan B with how competent and how reliable are the current predictive climate models regarding what the future impacts will be. It's interesting that if you examine the most recent publication of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which is the authority everyone looks to, their most recent released reports, which is the latest thinking they have to offer. Don't read the executive summary because it doesn't tell you anything about the competency of the real work that's informing our understanding of what's happening with the climate system. You have to read the detailed reports that the scientists, the mathematicians, and the people who are very knowledgeable around the climate system are writing.
I think when you look into that report, one of the things that we look carefully at every year is what level of progress has been made in the competency of those models to predict the future. If you look at those reports, what you see is an extraordinarily broad range of predicted outcomes. Our energy outlook, actually not by necessarily taking those models, but just by our own work, would indicate that we're somewhere in kind of the middle of where those models are. The policy choices of controlling the temperature rise to 2 degrees centigrade tend to require you to operate on the lower boundary of those models, which is extremely challenging to achieve, which is why we've said you need to be thinking about plan B.
I preface my response here with everyone needing to understand we don't really know what the climate effects of 600 ppm versus 450 ppm will be because the models simply are not that good. Having said that, we strongly support and have supported continued scientific investigation, continued perfection of the models, and they will get better. We're collecting so much more data today than we were 10 years ago. We have high-speed computing available to us today that we did not have 10 years ago. We anticipate, we hope, that the competence of the models begin to close, and therefore you can have a higher confidence around the outcome. I would preface my answer with, I don't want to suggest that we know at 650 you get x centimeters rise in sea level versus 450 because the models just aren't that good.
It is a risk management problem, which we have always described it, and in risk management, you have to consider the range of possible consequences and be prepared for those. That's why we have always posed this question of what if everything we do, it turns out our models were really lousy and we achieved all our objectives, and it turned out the planet behaved differently because the models just weren't good enough to predict it. What's plan B? Our plan B has always been grounded in our beliefs around the continued evolution of technology and engineered solutions to address and react to whatever the climate system and its outcomes present to us.
Whether that be in the form of rises in sea level, which we think you can address through different engineering accommodations along coastal areas, to changing agricultural production due to changes in weather patterns that may or may not be induced by climate change. We believe there are, and there are today, a number of studies and efforts underway, not just at academic, but at also private institutions, beginning to think about the implications of that and how can our economic system, and I use that in its broadest terms, from the food we eat, to the water we consume, to how we produce the products that provide us with quality life. How does it adjust to the climate that's moving around it?
What our belief, without giving you a long laundry list, is that we are highly confident because we're a science and engineering company, because you see a lot of technologies that we have developed and people in our industry develop, and people in other industries are developing, that mankind has this enormous capacity to deal with adversity, and that those solutions will present themselves as the realities become clear, either through improved modeling and higher in the predictive capabilities of the models or as they are evidenced to us. I know that is a very unsatisfying answer for a lot of people, but it's an answer that a scientist and an engineer would give you. Over here.
Hi, I'm Molly Rooke, shareholder and mineral owner. The recent passage and signing of House Bill 40 in the Texas Legislature, which bans local control of oil and gas activities, effectively makes many local city ordinances, such as those in Denton and Dallas, illegal. Local ordinances were legal and needed because the state agencies repeatedly failed to adequately enforce regulations, the harm and environmental and health impact far exceeded expectations. These ordinances and bans were passed after years of careful study and input from industry experts, city staff and council members, and concerned citizens. I'm one of those who spent years working on the Dallas drilling ordinance designed to protect our health, safety, property values, and quality of life.
Now all that is at risk and our work to protect our families and communities has been voided by HB40. We're at the mercy of oil and gas operators, depending on them to be prudent, as defined by them, in their activities in our neighborhoods. I'm very disappointed to hear that ExxonMobil had a hand in HB40 and is supportive of other anti-local control bills around the country. I implore you to do all that you can to be the kind of prudent operators that you would want if your oil and gas operations were next to your own home and your own family. Thank you.
Thank you. Over here.
I'm going to give you a chance to talk on renewables. Last Friday, I was really surprised to read on the front page of the Financial Times: "Saudi kingdom built on oil sees end to fossil fuels and switch to solar future." First three paragraphs: "Saudi Arabia, the largest crude exporter, could phase out the use of fossil fuels by the middle of the century, the kingdom's oil minister said yesterday. The statement represents a stunning admission by a nation whose wealth, power, and outsized influence are predicated on its vast reserves of oil." I'd like you to say, when you see statements like this and make no statement at a meeting like this, where we are not only looking at the past but at the future.
When you look at that and you tell us that $34 billion is going to be spent in 2016 and 2017 on development, I was sitting here saying, "I wonder how many of this is going to go down the drain and won't be successful?" What's the percentage over the years of what your expenditures have been that haven't worked? What if somehow something could be done knowing that a lot of exploration on fossil fuels doesn't work? Why not also take a risk and spend more on solar, spend more on alternatives? I've talked with the company about being in dialogue with Boeing on biofuels coming from tobacco in South Africa. This company has what involved in algae. It hasn't worked. There's going to be the first most commercial green flight this October in South African Airways. Biofuels.
I'm not going to say it's the thing of the future, but somehow, when $34 billion is going into research development, exploration, drilling around the world for fossil fuels, and we don't hear a word on alternatives, it just seems you're living out of a past model, not preparing for a future. How do you respond to that reality of all the money going in business as usual and not something for the future, just in case we might be right?
Well, I know you've seen our Outlook for Energy. I reviewed the highlights of it with you today. We think it's going to be an extraordinary challenge to meet the world's energy needs over the next several decades, an important piece of which will be oil and natural gas, whether people like it or not. As to investment in renewables, quite frankly, Father Crosby, we choose not to lose money on purpose.
That isn't proof, though. That isn't proven. Solar has begun to make money. That's a misstatement, Mr. Tillerson. That's a misstatement.
Okay.
Solar and wind are starting to make money. Maybe not as much, but they're making money. Do you want to stay by your statement?
Yes.
I stay by my statement.
Because the only way, and they really don't make money, and you can point to any number of companies that have gone bankrupt.
I know that
even with hundreds of millions of dollars given to them to be written off, and they only survive on the back of enormous government mandates and subsidies, which are not sustainable. We choose not to invest in businesses that require government mandates and subsidies for them to exist. Therefore, we on purpose choose not to lose money.
You're getting subsidies from the government for fossil fuels. You're taking them.
We do not receive any subsidies. We operate under the tax code, which applies broadly to businesses everywhere.
Well, that's a technicality I know well.
Over here.
Good morning. My name is Charlotte Wells, and I wouldn't be here without ExxonMobil. My grandparents met in Cisco, Texas and married and moved to Houston, and my grandfather worked for one company, and it was the Humble Pipe Line. He retired in 1960. I was born in 1957, so I don't know a lot of his working life. I knew his retired life. He was a very special man with ethics and morals, and taught me those same things. He also taught me that the stock that he received when he worked for the pipeline, which eventually became ExxonMobil, was important because this is a democracy. It's a place where we are allowed to vote. We're allowed to vote our proxies. I try to do that every year.
Every once in a while, I miss, and this is my second meeting to attend, and I am very happy to be here. I do like to look at the board of directors and a lot of the things that I have worked on in my lifetime. One of the first things I do when somebody asks me about either a corporation or a nonprofit, I say, first, look at the board of directors, see if it represents the community that it is representing. I always vote for women and people of color that look like they will be representing the shareholders of this company. Would like to see more of that, so I support that shareholder resolution. I support the other shareholder resolutions, and I am so glad that they spoke eloquently on those subjects. I will speak on something a little bit different. I live in Shore Acres, Texas.
La Porte is what the zip code says, and I overlook Baytown. I see flares go off. I see massive amounts of pollution coming out of those companies, and I see them occasionally cited by the state of Texas for emitting more than they are supposed to. I can tell you that I see flares go off for days. I also work with the children in Baytown. Many of those children are on free and reduced lunch. That, as the American Petroleum Institute and other lobbyist organizations tell us how important these jobs are to our community. In Houston, I have also seen those jobs disappear. As soon as the price of oil went down, the jobs also went. I am really concerned about the way that ExxonMobil conducts its business. I have relatives in the Denton area.
Since 2008, I have been watching the Barnett Shale and Chesapeake, the corporation that was active there, who was showing full-page color ads in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram to get behind education and support the Barnett Shale. When I was coming back from church camp in Hunt, Texas, going back to Fort Worth with my mother in 2008, before Hurricane Ike, I saw 36 large diesel trucks leaving with fracking water or whatever one wants to call it, what has the chemicals in it. I wondered, where are they going? They just kept coming and leaving Fort Worth. Gasoline, I remember this because it was Hurricane Ike and I live in Houston. Gasoline was almost $4 a gallon. I was thinking, how much money are they making as they take all that water to where, to put it somewhere? Also, one last thing.
I grew up in Irving, Texas. I do not recall having earthquakes. I think it is time that ExxonMobil be responsible for their actions. Clean up your mess, and let us be a forward-looking company and look at things like what are we going to do in the future. Thank you very much.
Thank you. Down here. No, I'm sorry. On this side. Inside aisle.
Mr. Chairman, I am Malcolm Shaw from Dallas. I have this question. Will this aggressive expansion of China and its territorial waters interfere with any of our operations in Malaysia, Vietnam, or other areas, or has our legal department sufficiently restrained the Chinese navy?
Well, so far, none of our activities are directly impacted by some of the areas claimed by China. We do follow closely how those developments are progressing between governments. We have not been threatened nor shut down at this point in any of our activities. We do follow it closely. Is this on the shareholder proposals? Okay. Well, it appears we've covered all the business items. As I promised, we'll have further discussion time here. At this point, if any of you have proxy cards, please hand them to the ushers at this time. Those of you who have already returned their proxy cards need not vote by ballot unless you wish to change your votes. If you wish to change your vote, simply mark the appropriate sections of the ballot. The ballots will now be collected and turned over to the inspectors of the election.
If you wish your ballot to be kept secret, the ushers will provide you with an envelope. The appointed proxies in attendance today hereby cast all votes which we have been authorized to cast in accordance with the instructions indicated on the individual proxy cards. Again, if you have proxies, please pass those to the ushers in the aisle. Since proxies and ballots have been collected, I now declare the polls closed. While the inspectors of election are preparing their preliminary report, I'm willing to answer a few more questions regarding ExxonMobil's business. I will interrupt this discussion when the voting results are available. That I can report those to you. For others who have questions or would like to address the meeting, I welcome your comments at this time. Mr. Sifferman.
Thank you. Tom Sifferman. I want to say Tom Sifferman again because you may not realize this, but I really do appreciate what you guys are doing, Rex, especially you, the work you've done with the Boy Scouts and everything else, the way you make money for the company. You and your staff, Board of Directors, everyone does a fantastic job, and that's really great. I wanted to say that because we have a lot of negative comments here, but this is a good positive one. Thank you.
Thank you. Next, right here on the inside aisle. Yes.
Mr. Chairman, Board, and shareholders, my name is Harmon Dent. Our local union and company are currently negotiating a contract in Beaumont, Texas, on the established USW national pattern. Without getting into specifics, after five months of bargain, it's not going well. To us, it seems that the top priority for Exxon Mobil is to get our site out of the union's national pattern to isolate us. This has been and is a distraction in causing unfavorable morale issues amongst 1,100 employees at the site. Can you assure shareholders that our company is prepared to work with the union in Beaumont to provide labor peace while ensuring that the national standards already agreed to in other union contracts at Exxon Mobil locations in Chalmette, Billings, and Torrance are enacted in Beaumont as well?
I can assure you that we will, as we always have, we'll continue to negotiate and deal with the unions, all our represented employees in good faith. I'm not going to place myself on the front line of the negotiations. That would be unfair to those who are responsible for those. You have my assurance that we will always deal with you in good faith.
Thank you.
Over here on this side.
My name is Dan Hrany. I'm a former employee of Exxon Mobil, I have been wondering for some time now, since the partnership with the Russians in the Russian Arctic, especially the Kara Sea. Do you take into account the character and the history of leaders such as Vladimir Putin when you make these deals and have them as a partner, knowing that they have a record of extortion, human rights violations, and murder that goes over two decades? This goes for the board, too.
Well, I'm not going to endorse all your characterizations, we deal with a lot of governments around the world who do not follow a system of government that we enjoy here. We ensure that our contractual terms that we enter into and our rights, our grant of rights under the legal systems that we deal in, do have a way in which we can arbitrate differences down the road. If we have conflicts, and inevitably at some point in time, we always have conflicts, we have conflicts with our own government here in the United States, that we know there is a fair and impartial venue in which to settle those differences. Most of the contracts in countries such as we're dealing with in Russia are subject to arbitration provisions, which allow us to take those differences to an international court.
That's one of the ways in which we mitigate the risk. We know the people we're dealing with quite well. The only comment I would make about Russia, we have been there for more than 20 years. We've been producing offshore Sakhalin Island now for approaching a decade, and the Russian Federation government has honored every provision of that contract through its entire existence, notwithstanding differences we've had with them from time to time. Over here. Inside aisle.
Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Tillerson. My name is Joe Meyer of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I'd like to give you some accurate information about safety, and I think we're all concerned about safety, as you well said so in your presentation. On April 10th of this year, at approximately 12:30 P.M., a SAC employee was working on the 2X cracking unit. Receiving a call on his radio from his operator said there were reports of a fire on H furnace. When the assistant operator went to investigate, he noticed at the top of the furnace, one of the feed lines had separated. Upon further investigation, he noticed that the stack support from another furnace had fallen and hit the pass 7 line, causing it to become unattached. Feed in that pass had been taken out earlier, a result of plugging 2.
The rest of the furnace was being supplied with hydrocarbon feedstock. Assisted by other operators, the furnace was shut down. A few days after this event, the assistant operators were told that this was a known problem that had been dated back as far as 10 years. They were told that the latest inspection done 2 years ago, yet no one had ever posted that or notified these assistant operators for the needed repairs. Moreover, the stack furnace brace on other furnaces had been deemed for a long time to also need repairs. The area was finally being barricaded off, and as of today, this one stack support line has been repaired on H furnace. The point here is that this was a known hazard for over 10 years and could have killed a worker in the area or even worse.
A large explosion could have resulted because of the lack of repairs. These types of issues are becoming more common at the Baton Rouge complex. Although management is proud of its safety record, it is really not the true picture of the safety hazards in this complex. Putting workers at risk with no information available to them and the lack of needed repairs is really not an acceptable risk. Another point I'd like to make is that wage earners and company employees are not being fully trained or lack years of experience, are being fired for sometime making one error on a permit paperwork while management is not taking any action on the safety issues. There is really a lack of accountability. This is why I'm here today to let you know the real truth of what's going on in the Baton Rouge complex. Thank you.
Thank you. Over here on the inside aisle.
Good morning, Mr. Chairman. My name is William Balfour. I am from Massachusetts. I am a long-term shareholder. First, I'd like to thank you, the board of directors, and all the employees of ExxonMobil for all their work and efforts to keep the company strong. I also know it's been a very challenging environment to work in this past year, especially given the drop in oil prices. I'd like to go on to say I'd like to thank the board of directors again for increasing the dividend, especially in this environment. I know it wasn't necessarily an easy decision. Having said that, I have two questions. The first, Reuters recently reported that Saudi Arabia has built a refining plant that will surpass Exxon's refining size and capacity. Can you speak to that and what it means to the industry?
Can you provide some insight as to what that will mean to the refining margins for Exxon's margins, revenue, and profitability?
Well, there is today, depending on what region of the world that you examine, there is already overcapacity in the refining sector. Certainly in Europe, there's been some rationalization. In parts of Asia, particularly Japan, there's been some rationalization. The new refineries that are being built are being built with the highest levels of energy efficiency, new technologies that are being put into those refineries. They are going to be very competitive. Having said that, what we constantly do is look at our entire refining network, and we make adjustments accordingly. If we have refineries that we feel are likely to become defensive because of what we see emerging around the world, then we try to exit those through divestment while they still have value to potential purchasers.
That was certainly, if you recall, our exit from the Japanese refining sector here a couple of years ago. That was the thought in mind as we saw that becoming very defensive. We sold refineries in parts of Europe. We shut down parts of refineries, all in response to this changing dynamic. This is not a bad thing because it means there's higher value products available from new facilities that have newer technology, and it really challenges our refining organization then to make ourselves more competitive. Some of the investments that I shared with you today are really looking at what we believe are our strongest competitive sites in the world. How do we make them even stronger? How do we make them even more competitive?
Whether it's our investments in Antwerp or Baytown or other refineries, that's our response to it, is take on the challenge and how are we going to improve our performance operationally with technology or by making some additional investments to improve the value of the products that they're producing. We feel we have a very strong position in the refining sector.
Great. Thank you. My second question is, since this time last year, the price per barrel has dropped by nearly half. You may recall, I'm the gentleman who asked last year what the lowest price per barrel that needed to be maintained in order to sustain the dividend at this current rate. Part of your response included there were lots of knobs and levers to push and pull. Having said that, I'm assuming that some of those knobs and levers had to be pushed this past year. I'll take in part a reduction in the share back program and the reduction in capital spending. Was there anything else that falls into those line of knobs and levers being pulled and pushed that you can respond to?
What we have to do as an organization and what the organization is doing is recognize, as you say, we're now receiving half the value of the products we were producing and selling. That says, therefore, you must get the cost of producing those down as well. It's typical when this industry goes through these cycles, and we've been through a number of them for my career. As the prices come down, eventually the cost structure adjusts with it because the cost structure adjusted up when the prices went up. That's painful as to how that happens broadly across the sector. Inevitably, that's what happens. We are seeing the cost structure begin to adjust as well, which restores some of the profitability. We can't just sit back and wait for that to happen.
I assure you, our organization is not just sitting back and waiting for it to happen. They are very aggressively looking at how do we drive the cost back down to where costs are more appropriate with the pricing structure that we're in, recognizing that we'll be here one day, we'll be somewhere else tomorrow in the price curve. I often tell people that make price predictions from $40 to $120, you'll be right at some point. Let me go over here to the outside aisle.
Yes, I'm also from Baton Rouge. I appreciate y'all's time. Like they say, Lord gave us another day, got to make the best of it. I want to bring up some issues. I spoke last year about some manning issues, lack of manning issues. My name is John Battle. I didn't say that, I'm sorry. Our managers at Baton Rouge like to say we're the largest isopropyl alcohol producer in the world, and follow that up with, "It's manned with one A-O." That don't really sound right. A lot of equipment's been added, labor-intensive equipment. I understand that cutting jobs because the equipment's improved and it's less labor-intensive, I understand that. You don't want people just sitting around. When the equipment you add is more labor-intensive and you don't even think about adding to the workforce, it's kind of bad.
I asked last year if maybe you'd send somebody to check it out. I'd be willing to show them everything I'm talking about and look at this job to see if we could possibly revamp it. I came up with a plan. I talked to a section supervisor years ago who was there, he liked the idea, but he's been promoted and moved up now, we don't have him to help us. It's hard to come to talk to management about adding jobs because they never want to hear it. They just think people not doing their jobs. We need to really look at safety a lot harder at the plant. I appreciate y'all's time. Y'all have a good day.
Thank you. Let's see, right down here. I don't believe we've heard from this lady yet.
Hi, my name is Melissa Boswell. I've been an employee at the Baytown facility for almost 20 years now. Mr. Chairman, in February of this year, a large fire and explosion rocked the ExxonMobil's Torrance, California refinery and the surrounding community. The damage to the facility was significant and remarkably, no lives were lost. However, the threat of a catastrophic event like Torrance is material risk for shareholders, which requires a higher level of transparency. I encourage our company to take a stronger and more active role in making sure its refinery and petrochemical facilities engage in higher levels of compliance and transparency. In ExxonMobil's recent published 2014 Corporate Citizenship Report, the section on safety and security focuses on workforce lost time incident rate, and recordable injuries. This is useful information for shareholders but does not tell the whole safety story.
While the citizenship report includes limited information regarding process safety management, it is the experience of myself and those who I work with inside the refinery on a daily basis that the PSM is the best indicator of safety. My experience is that the information included in PSM reports does not always make it down to the shop floor level where it could do the most good. I can also tell you it is very frustrating to witness the Torrance explosion while our union engaged in tough negotiations over health and safety with the entire oil industry. Mr. Chairman, I think it is important that our company continue to build on its safety culture as a core value. Considering the high stakes involved regarding near misses, I think this is information that shareholders would want to know more of as well.
It helps increase trust with our company and the whole industry. Thank you.
Thank you. The inspectors of election are ready to report the preliminary vote. May we have your report, please?
Mr. Chairman, at least 3.5 billion shares of stock of the corporation have been voted on the 11 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. The subject to the final tabulation of votes, which should not materially change the results, we report that on average, 97.1% of the votes cast were voted to elect as directors the 12 nominees listed in the proxy statement. On the resolution concerning the ratification of independent auditors, approximately 99.1% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 0.9% were voted against. On the resolution concerning an advisory vote to approve executive compensation, approximately 90.1% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 9.9% were voted against.
On the resolution concerning an independent chairman, approximately 33.8% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 66.2% were voted against. On the resolution concerning a proxy access bylaw, approximately 49.4% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 50.6% were voted against. On the resolution concerning a climate expert on board, approximately 21% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 79% were voted against. On the resolution concerning a board quota for women, approximately 4.3% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 95.7% were voted against. On the resolution concerning a report on compensation for women, approximately 5.8% of the shares voting thereon were voted for and 94.2% were voted against. On the resolution concerning a report on lobbying, approximately 21% of the shares voting thereon were voted for, and 79% were voted against.
On the resolution concerning greenhouse gas emissions goals, approximately 9.6% of the shares voting thereon were voted for, and 90.4% were voted against. On the resolution concerning a report on hydraulic fracturing, approximately 24.9% of the shares voting thereon were voted for, and 75.1% were voted against. Our written reports will be submitted to the Secretary as soon as they are completed.
Thank you. The state of the written report of the inspectors of election on each of these matters will be delivered to the Secretary and filed with the minutes of the meeting. The final votes on each of these matters will be available on the ExxonMobil website, and they will be filed with the SEC on Form 8-K. In concluding the meeting, again, let me thank all of you once again for attending. We really do appreciate you taking the time and the interest in coming here today and spending this time with us to talk about issues that we know are extraordinarily important to each one of you. I appreciate the thoughtfulness in your comments, the presentation, the way in which you present them, and I assure you, we listen. We hear you.
I assure you, the board, the management committee, which is sitting up there with the board, we all listen very carefully to everything that is said in these meetings. It's important to us. I know we may not give you the answers you want, but I assure you it's not because you have not received thorough consideration and deliberation, and our thinking continues to advance. We always are in a mode of learning. That's the nature of what we do as well. Again, I thank all of you for being here. It's always a pleasure to see the many annuitants that are here. It's a real pleasure to get to see you out in the foyer and say hello to you. We once again thank you for your many years of service to this great corporation.
As has been said by others, we stand on the shoulders of those who go before us, and we appreciate your contributions. We ask that you travel safely on your way home, be safe, and we hope to see you next year.