Promoting fiscal transparency

We share EITI’s view that fiscal transparency will help citizens hold their government leaders accountable and combat corruption. This idea squarely aligns with our values, and it’s important for good resource governance, which is why I’m excited and honored to be nominated to serve on EITI’s board. 

As the International Energy Agency and other experts agree, oil and natural gas are expected to continue to play a vital role for many years to come because these resources are critical to meeting society’s need for reliable and affordable energy. To meet these needs and reduce greenhouse gas emissions – to solve the “and” equation, as we like to say – strong collaboration among governments, energy companies like ExxonMobil, and civil society is essential to help develop a nation’s natural resources in economic, equitable and environmentally responsible ways. 

We’re proud to work with many countries that currently belong to EITI, and to participate in multi-stakeholder transparency groups that contribute data for fiscal disclosures, while also helping citizens benefit from development of oil and natural gas resources. 

Some host governments have mandated disclosure of contracts and beneficial ownership.  We support them in these steps, too. As a public company, we support beneficial ownership transparency. And, where it’s permissible, we support making contracts that govern the exploration and development of natural resources publicly available.  

In fact, ExxonMobil discloses tax and other payment information in many countries that have not joined EITI, including Canada, Australia, Namibia, Cyprus and others.  The United States is not currently a member of EITI, but we will be complying with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission’s newly implemented rules for this financial year for reporting payments to governments for extractive activities. These rules are only applicable to public companies in our sector and will provide an unprecedented level and amount of country-by-country tax payment information that no other industries are required to disclose publicly.

ExxonMobil is proud to promote fiscal transparency, and we look forward to supporting EITI as it seeks to build on its 20 years of promoting fiscal transparency as well.