ExxonMobil says it has ended its membership with the US oil lobbying group American Exploration and Production Council (AXPC) because of the group's "aggressive" opposition to environmental regulations, though oil industry leaders with knowledge of AXPC's advocacy question that justification.
While AXPC and ExxonMobil share "high-level positions on climate change", AXPC's positions on specific policies have "increasingly diverged from ExxonMobil's climate principles", the company said in the methodology of its third annual lobbying report, which has not been reported previously.
Specifically, ExxonMobil noted AXPC "pushing back aggressively" on methane regulations from the administration of former US president Joe Biden, as well as AXPC's stance on development and land access issues "to repeal as many of [the Biden administration's] regulations as possible, which is inconsistent with ExxonMobil's more nuanced approach to these issues". ExxonMobil said in the report that it supports federal methane regulations as they are "the most effective way to reduce methane emissions at scale".
But AXPC's positions and advocacy in these policy areas have been virtually identical for years with other trade groups that ExxonMobil listed in its report as "aligned" with its own climate policy positions, particularly the largest US oil lobbying group American Petroleum Institute (API), three oil company leaders who work closely with API and AXPC told Argus.
The company leaders, who asked to remain anonymous to avoid infighting that might hamper joint lobbying efforts, said they were surprised by how ExxonMobil described AXPC in its report. They said the statements did not fairly or accurately represent the group's positions or advocacy.
Moreover, they described AXPC and API as working in lockstep with one another on many issues, including by coordinating advocacy efforts through frequent meetings and jointly signing letters to federal agencies. Oil companies that are members of multiple trade groups typically work to ensure those groups are aligned and speak as a unified voice on key policy issues to make lobbying efforts more effective, the leaders said.
ExxonMobil declined to comment for this story.
'Practical' regulations
AXPC supports "cost-effective, practical methane regulations and balanced management of energy production on federal lands", AXPC chief executive Anne Bradbury told Argus. AXPC declined to comment on ExxonMobil's characterization of its positions and advocacy.
AXPC, which ExxonMobil joined in 2010 through its $41bn acquisition of independent producer XTO Energy, was the only organization ExxonMobil deemed "misaligned" with its own climate policy positions out of 65 groups in which ExxonMobil was a member and had identified as "active and potentially influential" in the climate policy space. AXPC represents large independent producers, a category which included XTO before ExxonMobil acquired it. XTO in 2020 completed the relocation of its headquarters from Fort Worth, Texas, to ExxonMobil's Houston-area campus.
While ExxonMobil in 2024 "worked to bring AXPC closer in alignment with ExxonMobil climate principles to the greatest extent possible", it decided to end its membership in 2025, the company said in the report. ExxonMobil's last effective day of membership was 31 December 2024, AXPC confirmed to Argus.
Image rehabilitation efforts
ExxonMobil in recent years has sought to repair its checkered reputation on climate issues by speaking more forcefully about its commitment to play a leading role in combating climate change.
"I'm fully aware that there are many who question ExxonMobil's commitment [to combating climate change] because of what was said over 30 years ago or what they think Exxon knew back then," ExxonMobil chief executive Darren Woods said in November 2023. "I'm more interested in what ExxonMobil knows today" — that "the need to address the very real threat of climate change" is "one of the major problems facing the world today", and that "world-scale problems like climate change need world-scale companies to help solve them — like ExxonMobil", he said.
After US president Donald Trump won re-election in November 2024, Woods called on Trump to not withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, as he did in 2017 after Trump won his first presidential term.
The departure from AXPC is ExxonMobil's second such trade group withdrawal since shareholders voted in 2021 to have the company issue annual reports describing if and how its lobbying activities align with the Paris climate agreement's goal of minimizing global warming. In 2022 it terminated its membership in the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), which ExxonMobil said stemmed from "misalignment on climate priorities and other policy considerations".
Aside from its alignment with the various lobbying groups on climate policy and advocacy, ExxonMobil said its assessment of its membership with the groups also considered potential risks related to "shareholder relations" and its "corporate reputation".
ExxonMobil's most recent lobbying report appears to have been released in early January, months after Trump won a second term on a campaign that included pledges to undo wide swaths of US environmental regulations. This would also put the report's publication date less than three months after the oil and gas watchdog group Fieldnotes uncovered confidential documents showing AXPC's plans to combat a proposed fee on methane emissions.
ExxonMobil is aided in its image rehabilitation efforts by its greater capacity to comply with methane regulations relative to smaller producers, such as those represented by IPAA. This is because larger firms can more easily afford the equipment, workers and other resources needed to curtail methane emissions without compromising their core business, Wood Mackenzie director of Americas upstream Ryan Duman said. Larger players can also leverage their relationships with marketers and midstream providers to capture and sell gas that would have previously been lost.
ExxonMobil also has a "commercial advantage" in supporting stricter methane regulation because its status as a major US LNG exporter forces it to consider the fugitive emissions criteria of their potential customers, "particularly in Europe", Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy senior research associate Ira Joseph said. ExxonMobil's competitive advantage in complying with such regulation would also enable it "to acquire competitors that are unwilling or unable to comply", Joseph said.
