Exxon faces investigation into accounts from New York Attorney General

US oil corporation Exxon Mobil Corp. is set to be investigated by New York Attorney General Eric Schneidermann over claims that the company has not written down the value of its assets.

According to the Wall Street Journal, Exxon is the only oil company not to take writedowns on its assets, which has led to suspicion during a two-year period where prices of the commodity have plummeted.

Some oil producers worldwide have written down the estimation of certain wells by as much as $200bn.

Exxon has outperformed rivals such as Chevron, Royal Dutch Shell and BP since 2014, only losing around half the share of the others, as it avoids the losses that are associated with the write-downs

Chief executive Rex Tillerson has maintained that the company has been able to avoid the lowering of estimations as it holds executives responsible for working at lower prices.

"We don’t do write-downs," Tillerson told Energy Intelligence last year. "We are not going to bail you out by writing it down. That is the message to our organization."

The message from Exxon has been clear since the beginning of the price drop. It believes that it is unnecessary to write down the value of assets which will be present for decades, after the expected rebound in price.

Questions have been raised about the viability of asset estimations bein unimpaired by such a steep global fall in prices, and now Schneidermann has decided to formally probe the matter.

Exxon has not commented on the investigation, but has said that they follow all regulations.