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By Jennifer Hiller
DALLAS, May 29 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corpshareholders on Wednesday rejected a proposal to split the chiefexecutive officer and board chairman roles that some hadpromoted to protest a decision to strike an unrelated climatechange resolution from the ballot.
Two institutional shareholders had urged a vote in favor ofthe role split after Exxon got the U.S. Securities and ExchangeCommission to strike a climate change measure from its ballot.
The protest fizzled, with about 41% of the votes supportingthe separation at the company's annual meeting, little more thanthe more than the 38% approval votes that similar resolutionsgarnered in recent years.
Shareholders also defeated measures calling for a specialboard committee on climate change and for a report on the risksof climate change to Exxon's U.S. Gulf Coast chemical plants.
At Chevron Corp's annual meeting on Wednesday, aproposal to create an independent chairman received just 26% ofvotes, and only 8% of votes favored a board committee on climatechange.
In contrast, 99% of shareholders at BP Plc last weekfavored a resolution calling for the British oil company to meeta climate accord seeking to curb a rise in global temperatures.Royal Dutch Shell last year agreed to set targets toreduce greenhouse gas emissions and link them to executive pay.
New York state's pension fund and the Church Commissionersfor England, the endowment fund of the Church of England, hadbacked the independent chairman's proposal at Exxon after theirresolution seeking emissions goals was struck from the ballot.
The 41% approval for the independent board chair proposalwas the largest in the last seven times such a proposal has beenconsidered. New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli said in astatement that "Exxon would ignore this level of support for anindependent board chair at its own risk.”
Exxon has been in "open conflict about climate strategy anddisclosure" with its investors, said Edward Mason, whorepresented the Church of England and presented two climateresolutions that failed to gain majority support.
Shareholders in recent years have pressed Exxon to define apath toward meeting the 2015 Paris climate agreement to limitglobal warming, but the company has not committed to anytargets.
"Engagement on climate is important, but working onsolutions through fundamental research and development for newtechnologies is also important," Exxon Chief Executive DarrenWoods said at the meeting.
Exxon has multi-billion-dollar expansion programs to findand produce new reserves of oil and natural gas, as well as toexpand its refining and chemical footprint. It has projectedshale production of 1 million barrels per day in the PermianBasin, the top U.S. shale field, as early as 2024.
Woods said the company would continue to engage withshareholders as part of a "a years-long process."
More than 50 people organized by environmental group 350Dallas held signs and chanted outside the hotel entrance toprotest Exxon's climate policies.
"The climate crisis is real and they have contributed toit," said Olinka Green, 50, of Dallas, who held a sign saying,"There is no Planet B."
Shares of Exxon were down 0.62% at $72.16 on Wednesday.
Exxon is pushing ahead in China despite the trade warbetween the two countries, and Woods said its plans have notbeen interrupted.
Last year it was approved for an about $9 billion liquefiednatural gas terminal and a massive chemicals project in China,the second foreign firm after Germany’s BASF to gain approval tooperate such a plant without a local sponsor.
"That is a lifelong investment, a 50- to 100-year timelineinvestment," Woods said. "While we're sensitive to what we'reseeing in the current environment and the implications, andwe're making sure that we understand how issues can playthemselves out, we're also trying to put that in the context ofthis long-term time horizon we're trying to manage."(Reporting by Jennifer Hiller; editing by David Gregorio andLeslie Adler)
