Free Republic

You're welcome. This national polling about the congressional elecion has bothered me for a couple of weeks and it's time to straighten this out so that Republicans are not deceived by meaningless polls.

"Ohmeed Aziz Popal --- blue eyed Swede."

Must have been one of those wild-eyed Amish bombers, or maybe a crazed Irishmen after a shot of Bushmills and a beer chaser......... /sarc off

What's happening in PA these days, BTS? What do you think the Stillers will do this year? Is a repeat going to happen?

It's not good for any additional nations to obtain nuclear weapons. There are already too many nuclear weapons and too much weapons-grade fissile material in the world. The best situation would be if only the true democracies in the world had nuclear weapons, because democracies have the best nuclear security and the greatest restraint about the use of nuclear weapons. But as a practical matter, Russia, China, and Pakistan already have nuclear weapons and once a nation obtains them it is almost impossible to take them away without a nuclear war. So the nuclear threat from those countries already exists and we can't eliminate that threat, but the existence of this theat doesn't justify extending that threat to more countries.

Iran would be a particularly dangerous country if it obtains nuclear weapons because many people in Iran have a strong belief in martyrdom and top Iranian leaders have made some statements in support of the idea of national martyrdom. So deterrence through mutually assured destruction will not necessarily work with Iran, and there lies the greatest danger with Iran.

If Iran is allowed to build those first few nuclear weapons, then the cost of stopping them from building a large nuclear arsenal increases exponentially. If they get those first few nukes, then it would take a nuclear war to stop them from building a huge nuclear arsenal that directly threatens the survival of the US and Europe. It's difficult to imagine Western leaders making a decision to have a nuclear war with Iran, so if Iran gains any nuclear weapons then they will immediately be a future theat to the survival of the United States. This is why Bush, Cheney, Blair, Merkel, other Western leaders, and Israel will not allow Iran to build nuclear weapons under any circumstances.

This may raise the question about why Pakistan was able to build nukes. I believe the answer for why this happened is that the US has much more influence in Pakistan than in Iran and the US and Pakistan are watching their nuclear weapons like hawks to make sure they don't fall into the wrong hands. The Pakistani military and the Pentagon probably also have an emergency plan to deal with a fundamentalist revolution in Pakistan and prevent revolutionaries from seizing the nuclear weapons. There's no way for us to provide nuclear security and do the same thing in Iran, because thanks to peanut-head we have little influence inside Iran at this time. So if Iran builds a few nukes, then they would become a huge threat to continue building a large nuclear arsenal and ship-launched cruise missiles that could deliver those nuclear weapons to American cities in a devastating nuclear first strike.

In conclusion, Iranian nuclear weapons aren't going to happen while Bush is President and I don't think he will hand this situation off unresolved to the next President. So get ready, the next 18 months are likely to be very eventful in Iran.

I also think the timing of this inspection and shutdown is supicious, because it's about three months before the congressional election in November. Construction projects in Alaska usually have to be completed by the end of September before the snow begins to fall in October. So obviously the best time to inspect an oil pipeline would be in the middle of Spring, so that any needed repairs could start in May and take advantage of the relatively warm weather and long days in the Alaskan summer. I can't imagine why BP would have waited until mid-Summer to inspect those pipelines. People at BP are too smart and too knowledgable to make that mistake, in my view.

BP executives definitely have some exlaining to do about the timing of these inspections and the resulting shutdown of half of Prudhoe Bay production. This could have been an attempt to make the Bush Administration look bad and keep gasoline prices up higher than usual in October, thereby helping the DemocRATs in the congressional election.

Geez, what is the UN doing putting in a peacekeeping force that doesn't even have enough muscle to force Hezbollah away from their positions? The UN put these peacekeepers right in the middle of this battle and turned them into human shields for Hezbollah. It's time to pull all these UN troops out of Lebanon before more of them get killed.

It seems like the US needs to push Lebanon to move the civilians out of the border area. We can push this as a humanitarian move, but this will also help Israel defeat Hezbollah and begin the long process of ending support for Hezbollah within the Lebanese government. Physical seperation of the Lebanese civilians from Hezbollah will promote the concept of political seperation of Lebanon from Hezbollah too. Ultimately of course, it is essential for a regime change to occur in Iran so that Iran is no longer trying to dominate Lebanon and the Middle East through terrorist groups like Hezbollah.

This latest offer does look like a smart strategic move. But if Iran accepts this offer we will be giving them the ability to produce Plutonium in the future and we had better have a viable long-term contingency plan to deal with the situation if they kick out the IAEA and foreign technicians and then attempt to reprocess the plutonium into weapons-grade plutonium. We need a infallible contingency plan to stop them from producing weapons-grade plutonium if that situation occurs. I would assume the Pentagon has a plan to deal with that situation.

So, those who willfully and deliberately and repeatedly break our laws should be given "respect?"

Well, tens of millions of Americans deliberately, repeatedly, and flagrantly violate speed limit laws on our highways every day (resulting in hundreds of needless accidental deaths every month) and cheat on their income taxes every year. So do you want to prosecute all of those willful lawbreakers too, or only illegal immigrants?

But it ain't over yet. We're only in the 3rd inning of this Iranian crisis. Our closer hasn't even warmed up yet.

Or maybe they're negotiating for a better package of economic incentives, and meanwhile they're running an extortion racket to keep oil prices high.

Calm down man, you're misreading this situation. Iran is still at least a couple of years away from building a bomb. We're working towards a diplomatic solution where Russia does all the uranium enrichment for Iran and controls all nuclear fuel in Iran. If this agreement is reached, then Russia just has to move all the spent nuclear fuel out of Iran so there's never enough plutonium in Iran to make a bomb. Nobody outside of Iran wants Iran to have nuclear weapons This is Iran against the world, and I'm betting on the world winning this fight. We have all kinds of ways of stopping Iran if necessary with different kinds of military strikes and the use of classified weapons systems.

Well, market forces will ensure that crude oil price reductions are passed on to consumers. Regulators, such as the FTC, use antitrust laws to make sure companies do not interfere with free market forces by restricting supplies of products.

If we got rid of all onerous government regulations and tariffs, then oil production would increase, refining capacity would increase, and gasoline prices would be lower than they are today with all the onerous government regulations and tariffs. Federal and state regulators make sure that crude oil cost savings are passed on to consumers. There's no way for refiners to pocket all the extra profit. It doesn't happen immediately, but pump prices fall when crude oil prices fall.

Probably a mistaken clock setting on one of FR's web servers or something like that. Very cool trick there...gives you a futuristic image.

I almost forgot to say....welcome to FR.

Are you in Europe? How did you get tomorrow's date as your sign-up date?

One of the reasons oil companies shut down some refineries is because oil supplies were depleted in inland areas and there was no longer enough oil to supply land-locked refineries in inland areas. You'll notice that most of our refineries are now on the three coasts or near the Houston ship channel, so the refineries can receive shipments of imported oil. Shell Oil just shut down a refinery in Bakersfield, CA last year because they no longer have enough San Joaquin Valley oil to run the refinery at a profit. Shell tried to sell the refinery, but last I heard nobody wanted to buy it because it loses money. The oil industry is constantly changing. It's not like semiconductors where they have abundant raw materials and they can build their factories anywhere and keep them running forever.

"They cannot be driven because the oil and gas industry does not exist in a free market mode."

The oil & gas industry is primarily driven by the free market forces of supply and demand. Governmnent taxation, regulation, tariffs, and limits on exploration interfere with free market forces in some ways and impede free market forces. But it's basically a world-wide free market system, with one big exception: OPEC is a foreign cartel that restricts output to maintain higher prices. Right now OPEC has very little excess capacity so the cartel is not having any significant effect on prices, but they did cause higher prices 3-5 years ago.

How did you manage to get a sign-up date that is tomorrow's date: 4/27/06? Are you trapped in a time warp in the Romulon galaxy?

I kept trying to tell Travis McGee that Iran couldn't possibly disrupt shipping traffic in the strait for more than 30 days (at most). Maybe now he'll believe me, but somehow I doubt it.

"Don't forget North Korea..."

Remember that mysterious mushroom cloud over North Korea than Colin Powell said was not from a nuclear explosion...

Iran's nuclear weapons program will be stopped. I wouldn't take all the rehetoric between Iran and the West at face value. It's all part of the negotation process over ending their nuclear weapons program. Iran will be stopped, one way or another, because the west cannot afford to take the risk of not stopping Iran.

I don't enjoy saying this, but I think this was a case of the old Washington arrogance that exists in both parties. They believe they can do what they think is best for the country (as we also see in lax border security), and then sell any policy to the American people. I think our foreign policy wonks want to keep the lid on the WMD evidence because it's embarassing to our European allies and perhaps embarassing to some people in previous US administrations. But this story isn't selling to the American public any more now that the casualties and financial cost have become big numbers. We need to see more hard evidence of WMD programs.

Thanks, I'm still amazed at the major strategic error known as the Kaye Report and Kaye's testimony. What a cluster f***.

I agree that the administration needs to release a lot more information about what WMD and weapons labs we found in Iraq. At this point in time, the biggest mistake the Bush Adminstration has made is the statement by David Kaye when he said "we got it all wrong" (about Iraqi WMD programs). That statement, blaming the CIA for the lack of WMD discovered in Iraq, may have been a fairly good tactic to win the 2004 election but I think it was a strategic blunder. That one sentence, and the rest of the report, have greatly undermined public support for the WOT. Whoever approved that statement, which I doubt is really correct, made a major mistake in my view.

At this point, Bush needs to start undoing the damage from that Kaye report and release as much information as possible about WMD discoveries, however modest in amount, and talk about the extreme lethality of these weapons. We also need to take the media to see some of Saddam's weapons labs, even if those labs were built by our European allies. We need our allies for sure but we also need public support for the WOT, which has slipped badly because of the lack of evidence presented for WMD, weapons labs, and nuclear weapons labs.

"Gas wasn't super-expensive before the companies merged, so why can't they keep it cheap again?"

The biggest reason for the increase in gasoline prices since 2000 is the increase in crude oil prices resulting from much higher consumption of oil in China, India, the rest of Asia, and the US. IIRC, crude oil was around $30 in 2000 and now it sells for $70. So that oil price increase is about $1.00 per gallon, which is why gasoline has gone from $1.65 to $2.65 since 2000. The latest surge is because of a spike in oil up to $75 and the new requirement to blend ethanol into the gas. Ethanol is more expensive than the old additive and there are shortages of ethanol in some areas.

I think Bush just rescinded the ethanol requirement today.

"I've seen numerous independent gas stations go under and a resultant increase in price at the pump."

Perhaps you have, but you need to find documented evidence that gasoline prices have risen because of fewer independent gas stations. There's been a steadily rising trend in oil prices ever since the Saudis flooded the oil market in 1998, reportedly to discipline production cheaters in OPEC. So what may appear to be price increases because of less competition may just be higher prices because of higher crude oil prices. Some of those independent stations may not have "gone under" either--they may have been bought up by big oil companies.

That list above is a list of crude oil and natural gas producers, and refining is a more concentrated industry because construction of refineries costs hundreds of $millions and it's difficult to get the environmental approvals. I'm aware of 13 refining companies operating in the US and a few joint ventures by these companies and foreign oil companies such as Petroleos Venezuelos. I've probably missed a few refiners in this list too:

Amerada Hess
BP PLC
Chevron Corp.
ConocoPhillips
Exxon-Mobil
Frontier Oil
Giant Industries
Marathon Oil
Royal Dutch Shell
Sunoco Inc.
Tesoro Corp.
Total SA
Valero Energy

Mergers and acquisitions have a dual impact on consumer prices for gasoline that works in opposite directions: 1) Less competition between fewer companies tends to increase prices and profit margins, but 2) bigger merged companies have greater economies of scale and a lower cost structure, causing lower production costs and lower consumer prices. Those two tendancies work in opposite directions: mergers generate less competition but also create more cost-efficient companies. I don't know how it all adds up, but IIRC the DOJ antitrust standard is that each region of the country should have at least six refiners competing to ensure adequate competition. No mergers can be approved that reduce competition below the DOJ standard.

Not yet. I doubt that his staff pays any attention to email from people outside of New York. But it might be worth a try.

Here's a list of oil & gas producers that I track in my computer system. These are most of the large publicly-traded American and Canadian oil & gas production companies. As you can see, this is a highly fragmented and very competitive industry with dozens of large companies. There are hundreds more smaller companies and private companies that are not on this list, but this gives you an idea. Recent statements out of Washington that mergers have reduced competition in this industry are ludicrous. Here's my list:

APACHE CORP
ANADARKO PETE CORP
BERRY PETE CO
CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP
CANADIAN NAT RES LTD
CABOT OIL & GAS CORP
CALLON PETE CO DEL
COMSTOCK RES INC
DENBURY RES INC
DEVON ENERGY CORP
ENCORE ACQUISITION CO
ENCANA CORP
EOG RES INC
FOREST OIL CORP
QUICKSILVER RESOURCES INC
MURPHY OIL CORP
NOBLE ENERGY INC
NEXEN INC
PETROLEUM DEV CORP
PARALLEL PETE CORP
POGO PRODUCING CO
PIONEER NAT RES CO
PLAINS EXPL & PRODTN CO
REMINGTON OIL & GAS CORP
RANGE RES CORP
SWIFT ENERGY CO
STONE ENERGY CORP
CANADIAN SUPERIOR ENERGY INC
SUNCOR ENERGY INC
HOUSTON EXPL CO
TALISMAN ENERGY INC
UNIT CORP
ULTRA PETROLEUM CORP
WHITING PETE CORP
CIMAREX ENERGY CO
XTO ENERGY INC
AMERADA HESS CORP
BP PLC
CONOCOPHILLIPS
CHEVRON CORP
MARATHON OIL CORP
OCCIDENTAL PETE CORP
PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA
PETRO-CANADA
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC
TOTAL S A
EXXON MOBIL CORP

As of 30 minutes ago, June oil futures were down 0.93 at $72.40 per barrel. That should knock a whopping 2 cents per gallon off the price of gasoline. But it's a start, and the waiver of fuel-blend regulations should help by increasing imports of gasoline. Next it's time to can that stinking tariff on imported ethanol, or at least reduce the tariff sharply.

"This is like Bill Clinton lecturing us on marital fidelity."

Who's zoomin' who here anyway?

IIRC, the SPR is very close to being completely full right now and commerical oil inventories in the US are well above average levels for this time of year.

I think it's a fixed amount of oil they deliver each month as lease payments. It's like a barter system that eliminates any impact from oil pricing. So far, in a rare display of fiscal shrewdness, the government has actually made a good deal for the taxpayers

Actually the Federal government doesn't pay cash for the oil that goes into the SPR. Oil companies deliver oil to the SPR as payment for federal oil leases.

Next thing Bush needs to do is push congress to repeal that stinking tariff on imported ethanol that is driving up gasoline prices.

"8 of those on your list are keeping me alive."

Now you go through saint looey
Joplin, missouri,
And oklahoma city is mighty pretty.
You see amarillo,
Gallup, new mexico,
Flagstaff, arizona.
Don’t forget winona,
Kingman, barstow, san bernandino.
Won’t you get hip to this timely tip:
When you make that california trip
Get your kicks on route sixty-six.

Over the last three years, I've made some real good capital gains on Talisman Energy, Apache, Marathon, ConocoPhillips, and several others on that list. Remember that famous scene in "The Graduate" when that guy leans over and whispers in Dustin Hoffman's ear and says "Plastics." Today he would say "oil sands"....lol.

Sounds like a good idea to reduce the fuel tax on trucks. Congress should also repeal the tariff on imported ethanol immediately. I'm not sure how much interest the oil industry has in drilling in ANWR because of possible future environmental litigation. That's an open question about how many oil companies would want to operate in ANWR.

Except for CANADIAN SUPERIOR ENERGY, which IIRC is a fairly small growth company, all of those independent (not major) oil and gas companies produce between $400 million and $11 billion of oil & gas per year. Devon Energy is probably the biggest independent on that list with revenues of close to $11 billion. Devon produces about half oil and half gas, so their oil production is about $5.5 billion per year or about 85 million barrels per year, which is roughly 232,000 barrels per day. Talisman Energy of Canada sells about $8 billion of oil and gas per year, also about half oil, so their daily production is roughly 169,000 barrels per day.

Are you talking about post #69?

Here's a list of oil & gas producers that I track in my computer system. These are most of the large publicly-traded American and Canadian oil & gas production companies. As you can see, this is a highly fragmented and very competitive industry with dozens of large companies. There are hundreds more smaller companies and private companies that are not on this list, but this gives you an idea. Recent statements from inside the beltway that mergers have reduced competition in this industry are ludicrous. Here's my list:

APACHE CORP
ANADARKO PETE CORP
BERRY PETE CO
CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP
CANADIAN NAT RES LTD
CABOT OIL & GAS CORP
CALLON PETE CO DEL
COMSTOCK RES INC
DENBURY RES INC
DEVON ENERGY CORP
ENCORE ACQUISITION CO
ENCANA CORP
EOG RES INC
FOREST OIL CORP
QUICKSILVER RESOURCES INC
MURPHY OIL CORP
NOBLE ENERGY INC
NEXEN INC
PETROLEUM DEV CORP
PARALLEL PETE CORP
POGO PRODUCING CO
PIONEER NAT RES CO
PLAINS EXPL & PRODTN CO
REMINGTON OIL & GAS CORP
RANGE RES CORP
SWIFT ENERGY CO
STONE ENERGY CORP
CANADIAN SUPERIOR ENERGY INC
SUNCOR ENERGY INC
HOUSTON EXPL CO
TALISMAN ENERGY INC
UNIT CORP
ULTRA PETROLEUM CORP
WHITING PETE CORP
CIMAREX ENERGY CO
XTO ENERGY INC
AMERADA HESS CORP
BP PLC
CONOCOPHILLIPS
CHEVRON CORP
MARATHON OIL CORP
OCCIDENTAL PETE CORP
PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA
PETRO-CANADA
ROYAL DUTCH SHELL PLC
TOTAL S A
EXXON MOBIL CORP

Good work!

Sens. Specter and Levin, if you want to bring down gasoline prices the answer is simple and it isn't rocket science. Here's the two sentence solution to the problem:

1. Open up more acreage in productive areas for oil exploration and production, so that the US produces more oil.

2. Make it easier to build and expand refineries in the US so that we produce more gasoline.

A "windfall profits" tax on oil companies would cause the opposite to happen, by discouraging oil production and expansion of refineries. Let the world's oil and capital makets solve this problem by directing more investment into oil production and refining, which is happening in a big way right now. If you clowns in congress had done something to support our domestic oil industry back in 1998 (when oil prices reached $10), we would have more domestic oil production today. At this point in time, the best course of action is to keep your grubby little congresscritter hands out of the free market system and this problem will solve itself in a few years.

The recent statements by some senators that oil company mergers are driving up the price of oil are ridiculous statements. There are hundreds of oil production companies in the US and thousands more throughout the world. No American companies have enough market share to significantly affect the price of oil by withholding supplies, and there's no evidence that any of them have withheld supplies. More taxes and litigation against oil companies and OPEC will only make this problem worse, and if congress attacks the energy industry with more taxes and litigation this problem could get much worse. We could have $100 oil and $4.50 gasoline in a few years if congress decides to shackle the oil industry with taxes and litigation.

Check the facts. The profits margins for drug companies and some software companies are much higher than the profit margins for oil producers and refiners. The political grandstanding over gasoline prices is just deplorable right now. When will people in congress show some intelligence and responsibility and overcome their narrow regional interests to help solve this energy problem? We need more drilling, more oil refineries, and more efficient vehicles to solve this gasoline price problem. If any part of this is difficult for you to understand, your staffers are welcome to Freepmail me for additional information.

One can make an arguement that Lee Raymond deserved that retirment package, but Exxon-Mobil was incredibly tone deaf in a political sense to give him that big of a package at this time. With gasoline at record prices, that was a very bad PR move by Exxon-Mobil, IMO.

Just for the record, oil refining was a terrible, marginally profitable business in most regions of the US during the 80s and 90s. Vehicle fuel economy increased dramatically during the early 80s and flattened the growth of gasoline demand. Refiners ended up with tremendous excess capacity during the 80s, so they're trying not to repeat the same thing in this decade. I don't know of any cost-effective technology that will boost gas mileage substantially in the near future. But you never know and so these companies are expanding production but at a more cautious pace than they expanded it in the 70s.

"we are going to do with ethanol, what we have with gasoline. with oil/gas, we have allowed a concentrated (through mergers and acquisitions) group of companies to control the market - those companies want tight refinery capacity, limited storage for refined products - because it keeps the price for their products high. the embedded companies do not want competition and new supplies and capacity."

Refining is more concentrated than oil production, which is a highly fragmented and very competitive world industry. But there are at least 12 refiners in the US that I track in my computer system and some join venture refiners by these companies and foreign oil companies. I'm sure there are more that I don't track:

AMERADA HESS CORP
BP PLC
CONOCOPHILLIPS
CHEVRON CORP
MARATHON OIL CORP
TOTAL SA
EXXON MOBIL CORP
FRONTIER OIL CORP
GIANT INDS INC
SUNOCO INC
TESORO CORP
VALERO ENERGY CORP

Refining is a much more capital intensive industy than production, so the barriers to entry are much greater and it's difficult for new companies to enter this industry. Total refining costs and profit are about $0.25 per gallon today. The majority of the cost of gasoline is the cost of crude oil: at $70 per barrel, the crude oil cost is approx. $1.63 per gallon.

Refining is more concentrated in some regions of the country, such as the west coast where I believe only 8-10 refiners operate. So the DOJ does need to keep an eye on this industry for possible collusion, but I have not seen any evidence of collusion myself.

I think the White House needs to jump on this and persuade some senators from outside the corn belt to introduce a bill to repeal this tariff on ethanol. Then have Bush support that bill publicly. It wasn't so bad when oil was down at $60, but oil at $75 adds about $0.35 to the price of gasoline, so this extra price for the ethanol tariff is starting to seriously hurt consumers. Bush could score a political win here by repealing this tariff on ethanol and bringing down gas prices, and he needs some political wins right now.

Good to hear because I'm driving a '98 Explorer.

And they speak the same language (more or less) so they can communicate and coordinate effectively with American SOF and the Australian SAS.

Besides the fuel economy issue, I'm also concerned about the effects of EtOH on my SUV's engine over the long run. Engines that were not desinged to run with alcohol-additive fuel may be adversely affected by this fuel. So it looks like once again congress is forcing us to become experimental animals in another experiment that panders to the environmental groups. Let's hope this one doesn't end as badly as the MTBE fiasco. What's wrong with pure gasoline anyway? It worked just fine for about 70 years.

Yes, ANWR development could employ a lot more people in Alaska. But I'm not sure how much interest oil companies have in ANWR. I think at least some companies may be concerned about endless environmental lawsuits if they spill a barrel of crude oil on the tundra in ANWR. I'm not sure how much investment would actually go into ANWR if it is opened up for production, but there are many other areas that could be opened up for oil drilling and construction of refineries.

Here's a list of oil & gas producers that I track in my computer system. These are most of the large publicly-traded American and Canadian oil & gas production companies. As you can see, this is a highly fragmented and very competitive industries with dozens of large companies. There are hundreds more smaller companies and private companies that are not on this list, but this gives you an idea. Recent statements from inside the beltway that mergers have reduced competition in this industry are ludicrous. Here's my list:

APACHE CORP
ANADARKO PETE CORP
BERRY PETE CO
CHESAPEAKE ENERGY CORP
CANADIAN NAT RES LTD
CABOT OIL & GAS CORP
CALLON PETE CO DEL
COMSTOCK RES INC
DENBURY RES INC
DEVON ENERGY CORP
ENCORE ACQUISITION CO
ENCANA CORP
EOG RES INC
FOREST OIL CORP
QUICKSILVER RESOURCES INC
MURPHY OIL CORP
NOBLE ENERGY INC
NEXEN INC
PETROLEUM DEV CORP
PARALLEL PETE CORP
POGO PRODUCING CO
PIONEER NAT RES CO
PLAINS EXPL & PRODTN CO
REMINGTON OIL & GAS CORP
RANGE RES CORP
SWIFT ENERGY CO
STONE ENERGY CORP
CANADIAN SUPERIOR ENERGY INC
SUNCOR ENERGY INC
HOUSTON EXPL CO
TALISMAN ENERGY INC
UNIT CORP
ULTRA PETROLEUM CORP
WHITING PETE CORP
CIMAREX ENERGY CO
XTO ENERGY INC
AMERADA HESS CORP
BP PLC
CONOCOPHILLIPS
CHEVRON CORP
MARATHON OIL CORP
OCCIDENTAL PETE CORP
PETROLEO BRASILEIRO SA
PETRO-CANADA
TOTAL S A
EXXON MOBIL CORP