CITIZEN POWER ALLIANCE

Be efficient. Economise. Do your part. That was the advice yesterday from Rex Tillerson, chairman and chief executive of the world's largest oil company, to consumers who are buckling under the strain of high fuel prices.

The boss of ExxonMobil said sky-high oil prices would only start to come down when demand eased but he warned that the world would be reliant on fossil fuels for generations to come, "whether people like it or not". And Exxon itself would remain a petrochemical company, he insisted, after beating back dissident investors' proposals which demanded that Exxon plough money into alternative energy, including wind and solar power.

Mr Tillerson's victory came despite an intense public campaign by the descendants of John D Rockefeller, the legendary oil magnate whose 19th-century monopoly, Standard Oil, ultimately spawned ExxonMobil. The Rockefeller family took their battle to the floor of ExxonMobil's annual shareholder meeting in Dallas yesterday, saying that the company faced becoming obsolete if it did not face up to the realities of climate change. Michael Crosby, a dissident shareholder supporting the Rockefellers, predicted that "ExxonMobilsaurus Rex will disappear" if it does not change course.

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