The Slatest

Tillerson to Receive Lifetime Achievement Award From Oil Industry at “Olympics of Petroleum” in Istanbul

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson attends the annual Governors’ Dinner in the East Room of the White House on Feb. 26.

Getty Images

After the G-20 summit winds down in Germany this weekend, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson will swing by Turkey to be honored for his previous career as CEO of Exxon Mobil.

On Sunday in Istanbul, Tillerson will receive the World Petroleum Council’s Dewhurst Award, described by the trade organization as a “distinguished lifetime achievement award,” for Tillerson’s “outstanding contribution to the oil and gas industry.” The award will be bestowed at the council’s triennial World Petroleum Congress, which describes itself as the “Olympics” of the petroleum industry. Tillerson, the 10th recipient of the award, joins a roster that includes the former CEOs of Shell and Chevron, a Saudi petroleum minister, and a deputy prime minister of Qatar.

This celebration of Tillerson’s service to the oil industry will raise eyebrows given Tillerson’s current involvement in a number of issues in which that industry has a stake, such as the worsening dispute between Qatar and the other oil-producing Gulf countries, the future of U.S. sanctions on Russia, and the uncertain state of global climate change policy. It’s also not a good look that the congress is sponsored by the office of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, whose government has recently been criticized by the State Department for the ongoing detention of an American pastor and the arrest of a local Amnesty International director among a number of other issues.

The issue of whether Tillerson’s oil career, which involved controversial negotiations in Russia, Iraq, and elsewhere, created any conflicts of interest, was a major topic during his confirmation hearing. Tillerson stated during the hearings that his commitments to Exxon Mobil had ended and that “if confirmed to be secretary of state, [I] will have one mission only, and that is to represent the interests of the American people.”

A State Department official told Slate that Tillerson had been “notified of the Council’s intention to give him the award prior to his Cabinet nomination” and that he had decided to receive it, as the congress coincided with a visit to meet with Turkish officials. The official also said that Tillerson is “receiving the award in his personal capacity” and that “the secretary’s ethics commitments do not prevent his attendance at the World Petroleum Congress. The congress provides the secretary an opportunity to meet with senior government officials from around the globe.”

That’s not likely to mollify Tillerson’s critics. Greenpeace USA senior climate campaigner Naomi Ages said in a statement that “Secretary Tillerson’s warped notion that it’s appropriate to attend and accept an award at an oil industry conference proves yet again that he has no idea how to be the United States’ chief diplomat.”