HESS CORP

Hess Corporation operates as an independent exploration and production company focused on crude oil and natural gas. Its primary assets are in the Bakken shale of North Dakota, offshore Guyana, and the Gulf of Mexico. The company’s core business is the extraction and sale of fossil fuels, placing its operational emissions intensity directly against peers in the upstream oil and gas sector.

In 2012, Hess entered into a consent decree with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice to resolve Clean Air Act violations at its Port Reading, New Jersey refinery. The company agreed to pay an $850,000 civil penalty and spend more than $45 million to install new pollution controls and implement a program to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions from its fluid catalytic cracking unit. While the company sold this refinery in 2013, this enforcement action documents a historical pattern of regulatory non-compliance concerning air emissions.

The Climate Transition Pathway initiative assesses companies relative to their industry peers on emissions performance and governance. Hess’s business model remains centered on expanding oil production, notably from its high-growth offshore Guyana assets. Its stated climate commitments, including a net-zero ambition for operational emissions by 2050, do not address the Scope 3 emissions from the combustion of its sold products, which constitute the vast majority of its carbon footprint. This omission is material for a pure-play upstream producer.