ExxonMobil Disputes Article in Journal ``Science''.

Energy Editors/Business Editors

IRVING, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Dec. 17, 2003

ExxonMobil's Vice President for Safety, Health, and the Environment today criticized a questionable study on the current condition of Prince William Sound, Alaska, which was announced in a press release by the journal "Science."

"Hundreds of peer-reviewed studies conducted by researchers from major independent scientific laboratories and academic institutions resoundingly demonstrate the recovery of the Prince William Sound ecosystem and strongly contradict the news release's claim that wildlife and aquatic plants continue to suffer as a result of the 1989 Valdez oil spill," ExxonMobil Vice President Frank Sprow said.

"What science has learned in Alaska and elsewhere is that while oil spills can have acute short-term effects, the environment has remarkable powers of recovery," he added.

"As a part of our commitment to sound science and to the people of Alaska, we have continued over the years to monitor the PWS ecosystem. Oil remnants are only being found where they were known to have existed at the conclusion of the cleanup and where the U. S. Coast Guard concluded there was no net environmental benefit associated with further cleanup eleven years ago. The abundance of biology in close association with the remnant oil remaining today refutes the notion that this oil residue has any significant biological effect. The vast majority of the affected shorelines have no visible oil remnants on the surface or sub-surface," Sprow said.

Sprow added that shoreline excavation efforts by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council indicate that perhaps a total of 26 acres of buried oil remain in isolated pockets and wave shadows of large boulders. Since PWS consists of about 5,000 kilometers of shorelines, this means that about two-tenths of one percent of the shoreline contains remnant and sequestered oil.

"There simply is no logical basis for concluding that such a tiny portion of the shoreline could be markedly affecting the PWS biological community even if it were accessible to plants and wildlife, which it is demonstrably not. Just as in all previous spills seen worldwide, the remaining oil is encapsulated, in place and not bioavailable. It if was leaching into the environment in ecologically meaningful quantities it would be gone after 14 years. You simply can't have it both ways," Sprow said.

"Although some researchers present cartoon depictions of how residual, sequestered oil could reach these species and thus lead to vague claims of lingering injury to consumer species, field research examining potential oil contamination in numerous intertidal and fish species confirms the lack of any such contamination. These data strongly support our position of a recovered Prince William Sound ecosystem," Sprow said.

Sprow noted that it is unusual for a scientific journal to adopt one point of view without recognizing the weight of scientific data which contradict that viewpoint. "Summary publications tend to lend themselves to speculative conjecture while scientific papers must support their conclusions with appropriate technical data. We continue to believe that scientific forums are the proper venue for rationally resolving significant scientific issues," he said.

Following the 1989 tanker accident, ExxonMobil retained some of the world's leading scientists to assess the impacts of the oil spill on the Prince William Sound (PWS) ecosystem. This research program documented both the damage and the subsequent rapid recovery of the Sound in studies which have been published in numerous peer-reviewed technical journals and presented at professional conferences throughout the world.

ExxonMobil spent more than $2.2 billion in the cleanup of Prince William Sound, staying with the cleanup until 1992 when the state and federal governments declared the cleanup complete. In settlements with the state of Alaska and the federal government, ExxonMobil also provided an additional $1 billion for environmental studies and conservation programs in Prince William Sound.

The following is a list of scientists who have done extensive studies of PWS. Reporters may wish to contact these scientists for further comment on this issue:

    --  Dr. David S. Page
        Hydrocarbon chemistry; oil spill response, restoration, and
          recovery
        Department of Chemistry
        Bowdoin College
        College Station
        Brunswick, ME 04011
        [e-mail]

    --  Dr. Robert J. Huggett
        Toxicology; forensic chemistry
        232 Administration Building
        Michigan State University
        East Lansing, MI 48824-1406
        [e-mail]

    --  Dr. John A. Wiens
        Avian ecology
        The Nature Conservancy
        4245 N. Fairfax Drive, Suite 100
        Arlington, VA 22203-1637
        [e-mail]

    --  Dr. Paul D. Boehm
        Hydrocarbon, marine, and forensic chemistry; oil spill
          response, restoration, and recovery
        Battelle Memorial Institute
        255 Bear Hill Road
        Waltham, MA 02451
        [e-mail]

    --  Dr. Jerry M. Neff
        Marine ecology, biology, and chemistry; oil spill response,
          restoration, and recovery
        Battelle Memorial Institute
        397 Washington Street
        Duxbury, MA 02332-0601
        [e-mail]

    --  Dr. Ernest L. Brannon
        Salmon ecology and biology
        Aquaculture Research Institute
        University of Idaho
        Moscow, ID 83844
        [e-mail]

    --  Dr. Walter H. Pearson
        Marine ecology; herring biology
        Battelle Memorial Institute
        1529 West Sequim Bay Road
        Sequim, WA 98381-9099
        [e-mail]

    --  Dr. William A. Stubblefield
        Aquatic toxicology
        Oregon State University
        1600 S.W. Western Boulevard, Suite 165
        Corvallis, OR 97333-4286
        [e-mail]