Chevron and Exxon discussed merger last year: reports

Last year, the CEOs of Chevron and ExxonMobil discussed the possibility of merging the two companies, the Wall Street Journal reported on Sunday, citing anonymous people familiar with the discussions.

The newspaper reported that Chevron CEO Michael Wirth and Exxon CEO Darren Woods spoke about the prospect after the Covid-19 pandemic began to negatively impact oil prices.

Discussions are not ongoing and have been described as preliminary, according to the Journal. Representatives for both companies declined to comment. The talks were then reported by Reuters.

A merger between Chevron and Exxon would be one of the largest in history and would likely be subject to antitrust review by President Joe Biden’s Justice Department. Both companies are descendants of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, which was disbanded by the Supreme Court in 1911.

Chevron’s market cap is $ 164 billion and Exxon’s is $ 189 billion, meaning the merged company would be worth north of $ 350 billion. The combined company would be the second largest oil and gas company in the world, after Saudi Aramco.

Oil prices have recovered much of their losses since the March crater, although they remained somewhat depressed amid a slower-than-expected vaccine rollout and concerns about new coronavirus variants.

– CNBC’s Pippa Stevens contributed to this report.