ExxonMobil – New Brunswick’s stealth employer

I was told not that long ago that ExxonMobil doesn’t put logos on its buildings because of the worry of security threats. But it seems to me that ExxonMobil in New Brunswick is too far under the radar.

I just re-read the APEC report on foreign investment in which they profile ExxonMobil. I want you to read the profile and then my comments below:

ExxonMobil headquartered in Irving, Texas, is the world’s largest publicly tradedinternational oil and gas company and the world’s largest refiner and marketer ofpetroleum products. The company has a long history of involvement on the East Coast of Canada. ExxonMobil is heavily involved in Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore oilindustry. It is the lead owner in the Hibernia field, which produced its first oil in 1997; andit is the second-largest stakeholder in the Terra Nova project, which began production in2002. ExxonMobil is the lead developer for the Hebron oil field with construction expectedto begin in 2012 to produce first oil by 2016 or 2017. The company holds several exploration licences in the Newfoundland and Labrador offshore. ExxonMobil is also thelead operator on the Sable Offshore Energy Project which began producing natural gasoffshore Nova Scotia in 1999. In addition, ExxonMobil operates the Imperial Oil refinery inDartmouth, Nova Scotia, which employs about 200 workers. The refinery beganproduction in 1918 and supplies customers in Atlantic Canada and Eastern Quebec. The company also has a number of Esso gas stations in the region.

Notice they go as far as to talk about ExxonMobil’s gas stations in the region. This is APEC here – not some grunt consultant (ahem).

No mention of the 1,100 ExxonMobil employees in New Brunswick business services centres in Moncton and Saint John. ExxonMobil employs far more people in New Brunswick than Nova Scotia and Newfoundland combined. In fact, outside of Texas, I believe ExxonMobil has more employees in New Brunswick – as a percentage of the workforce – than anywhere in the world (maybe an exaggeration but four out out of every 1,000 New Brunswickers working in the private sector work for ExxonMobil – not including gas stations).

My assumption is that this is some kind of clerical error at APEC. Maybe officially, the business service centres flow through Imperial Oil – the Canadian division of Exxon or something like that but make no mistake this is the most international of New Brunswick’s customer contact centres. They handle customer activity up and down the Americas and beyond.

I respect the company’s privacy but I think people should at least have a basic understanding of Moncton’s largest private sector employer.