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Comment by noonespecial | Hacker News Reader

HHhmm lets see.

There are x barrels of oil left on earth, Exxon gets most of them. Would it rather sell them at $50/barrel or $100/barrel.

Whatever else they say about production, there's always this.

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They'd rather sell for $200/barrel. Their plan to hold volume production flat is a good a reason as any to break up the company for the benefit of consumers. I wouldn't let them near 'green' energy development either as their interests aren't served by viable alternatives to oil.

This is silly. First of all, ExxonMobil doesn't control "most" of the oil reserves; they have only a very small fraction. And if the US federal government forcibly broke the company into several pieces (like Bell Telephone) the resulting smaller companies would still have no greater incentive to increase production.

I meant it as a critique of OPEC in general. They will control production to get the most money per barrel because when its gone, its gone. Exxon is the largest publicly traded energy company in the world (from tfa). They do better when prices stay high. While they may not be the biggest player in the whole oil game, they do play a significant role in oil's path to the end consumer. Lets just say they have a lot more to gain form $200/barrel oil than from $50/barrel oil and leave it at that.

Huh? ExxonMobil is not a member of OPEC. What are you proposing they do differently?

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