S.E.C. Probe Of Exxon Renews Focus On Company’s Resistance To Write-downs

S.E.C. Probe Of Exxon Renews Focus On Company’s Resistance To Write-downs

An Exxon refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.



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The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission opened an investigation into Exxon



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Mobil for possibly overvaluing some of its key oil and gas properties in the Permian Basin, the highest-producing oil field in the U.S., after an employee filed a whistleblower complaint last fall, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal on Friday that sent the oil major's market value down 5%. 

In 2019 several people complained during an internal assessment that employees were being forced to use unrealistic assumptions about how quickly the company could drill wells in the Permian to achieve a higher book value, reported the Journal, which reviewed a copy of the complaint. 

Citing unnamed sources, the article reported that the SEC had begun investigating the allegations after it received the complaint. The SEC declined to comment for the story. 

The oil and gas properties in question, in the Delaware Basin of the Permian, form a key part of Exxon's plan to ramp up shale production. In 2017 it paid $6 billion for 275,000 acres of land that at the