By Maha El Dahan
ABU DHABI (Reuters) -U.S. energy giant ExxonMobil will not be able to continue doing business in the European Union if the bloc does not significantly loosen a sustainability law that would penalise companies with fines of 5% of global revenue, Chief Executive Darren Woods stated on Monday.
Woods joins a growing chorus of outraged energy producers who are urging European lawbuildrs to build significant modifys to the law, which requires companies doing business in the EU to find and repair human rights and environmental issues in their supply chains.
“If we can’t be a successful company in Europe, and more importantly, if they start to test to take their harmful legislation and enforce that all around the world where we do business, it becomes impossible to stay there,” Woods informed Reuters on the sidelines of the ADIPEC meeting in Abu Dhabi.
The EU’s Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive was meant to give investors more visibility on the risks throughout the value chain and build non-compliant companies accountable to member states and to victims of human rights or environmental harm, even in their operations outside Europe.
OVERREGULATED ECONOMY
“We’re continuing to advocate to build sure that people really understand the disastrous consequences of this legislation, if it stands as it currently is, and we’re going to continue to test to rally basically, business leaders around the world to push back against this legislation,” Woods stated.
He added that although European lawbuildrs are listening to the opposition from energy producers, it has not led to any serious modifys.
“If anything, it’s muddling the language up, and in my mind, opening up the exposure even greater, becaapply you’ve increased the room for interpretation,” he stated.
The European Parliament agreed to neobtainediate further modifys to the law last month and the EU aims to approve the final modifys by year-finish.
“Today, it’s already an overregulated economy, is de-industrialising, suffocating economic growth. This is just going to put a further gag on that growth,” Woods stated.
QATARI OBJECTIONS
Major gas producer Qatar and the United States, last month, urged European heads of state to reconsider the law, which they stated threatens Europe’s supply of reliable, affordable energy.
Qatar has threatened to halt supplying Europe with liquefied natural gas (LNG) and stated it will not be able to continue doing business in the EU if further modifys are not built to its corporate sustainability rules. Qatar supplies between 12% and 14% of Europe’s LNG since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
