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March 20, 2008
The Facts
John Hofmeister, President & CEO of Shell Oil Company’s US Operations, is the guest CEO host on CNBC’s Squawk Box this week. While talking today about the current oil situation, Hofmeister said about 85% of the US outer-continental shelf was inaccessible for oil, and he talked about some other conditions that affected the price of oil. Without being pressed on the current oil prices, he admitted that “triple digit oil was out of place”. In another segment, he went on to say he was surprised that oil even hit $100 per barrel.
My View
Hofmeister has being saying some very interesting things on CNBC this week, and I must say that I have been impressed with him. For some reason he seems to be coming across more as a consumer and concerned citizen than in his past interviews. Maybe that’s because he will be retiring from Shell Oil Company on June 1, 2008, or maybe it’s because he does not picture himself this week as a salesman and/or PR man; who knows why. He also said that the world was not running out of oil, and that he does not subscribe to the “peak oil theory”. Hofmeister does not see a near future of running out of oil; in fact he actually sees a bright future as far as the availability of oil is concerned. He even addressed the possibility that the environment was being contaminated with CO2 by saying no one knew for certain, but let’s work technology to prevent that. CNBC’s John Kernen even poked fun at the fact that an oil company executive would say something like that.
All in all, I have to say that John Hofmeister made listening very interesting. He certainly takes a different approach on how an oil company should interact with the American consumer compared to ExxonMobil’s CEO. The latter said “if Americans didn’t like the price of his oil he would take it elsewhere and sell it”.
Watch clips of Hofmeister’s comments by clicking on the hyperlinks below.
Trillion Dollar Trades – Hofmeister’s comments on triple digit oil (you have to watch the entire clip, as Hofmeister makes his comments in the last 3 minutes of the clip.
Energy Myths – Hofmeister’s comments on C02 in atmosphere
Other clips with Hofmeister comments:
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