Southern Company (NYSE: SO) is a public utility holding company of primarily electric utilities in the southern United States. It is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia with executive offices also located in Birmingham, Alabama. The company is currently the 16th largest utility company in the world and the fourth largest in the U.S. Through its subsidiaries it owns and operates more than 42,000 megawatts of generation capacity and serves 4.3 million customers in Alabama, Georgia, Florida and Mississippi.

www.SouthernCompany.com

The General Electric Company, or GE (NYSE: GE), is an American multinational conglomerate corporation incorporated in New York. The Company operates through five segments: Energy Infrastructure, Technology Infrastructure, Capital Finance and Consumer & Industrial. In 2010, Forbes ranked GE as the world’s second largest company after JPMorgan Chase,based on a formula that compared the total sales, profits, assets, and market value of several multinational companies.

www.ge.com

The Exxon Mobil Corporation, or ExxonMobil, is an American multinational oil and gas corporation. It is a direct descendant of John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil company, and was formed on November 30, 1999, by the merger of Exxon and Mobil.

www.exxonmobil.com

Koch Industries, Inc. /ˈkoʊk/) is an American private energy conglomerate based in Wichita, Kansas, with subsidiaries involved in manufacturing, trading and investments. Koch also owns Invista, Georgia-Pacific, Flint Hills Resources, Koch Pipeline, Koch Fertilizer, Koch Minerals and Matador Cattle Company.Koch companies are involved in core industries such as the manufacturing, refining and distribution[1] of petroleum, chemicals, energy, fiber, intermediates and polymers, minerals, fertilizers, pulp and paper, chemical technology equipment, ranching, finance, commodities trading, as well as other ventures and investments.

www.kochind.com

Chevron Corporation (NYSE: CVX Euronext: CHTEX) is an American multinational energy corporation. Headquartered in San Ramon, California, and active in more than 180 countries, it is engaged in every aspect of the oil, gas, and geothermal energy industries, including exploration and production; refining, marketing and transport; chemicals manufacturing and sales; and power generation. Chevron is one of the world’s six “supermajor” oil companies. For the past five years, Chevron has been continuously ranked as one of America’s 5 largest corporations by Fortune 500. [wikipedia]

www.chevron.com

BP p.l.c. (LSE: BP, NYSE: BP) is a global oil and gas company headquartered in London, United Kingdom. It is the third-largest energy company and fourth-largest company in the world measured by revenues and one of the six oil and gas “supermajors”. It is vertically-integrated and is active in every area of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and production, refining, distribution and marketing, petrochemicals, power generation and trading. It also has major renewable energy activities, including in biofuels, hydrogen, solar and wind power.

BP has operations in over 80 countries, produces around 3.8 million barrels of oil equivalent per day and has 22,400 service stations worldwide. Its largest division is BP America, which is the biggest producer of oil and gas in the United States and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. As at 31 December 2009 it had total proven commercial reserves of 18.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent. The name “BP” derives from the initials of one of the company’s former legal names, British Petroleum.

BP’s track record of corporate social responsibility has been mixed. The company has been involved in a number of major environmental and safety incidents and received criticism for its political influence. However, in 1997, it was the first major oil company to publicly acknowledge the need to take steps against climate change, and in that year established a company-wide target to reduce its emissions of greenhouse gases. BP currently invests over $1 billion per year in the development of renewable energy sources, and has committed to spend $8 billion on renewables in the 2005 to 2015 period.

www.bp.com

The Archer Daniels Midland Company (NYSE: ADM) is a conglomerate headquartered in Decatur, Illinois. ADM operates more than 270 plants worldwide, where cereal grains and oilseeds are processed into products used in food, beverage, nutraceutical, industrial and animal feed markets worldwide.

ADM also provides agricultural storage and transportation services. The American River Transportation Company along with ADM Trucking, Inc are subsidiaries of ADM. ADM’s revenues for fiscal 2009 were US $69.2 billion.

Products include oils and meal from soybeans, cottonseed, sunflower seeds, canola, peanuts, flaxseed, and Diacylglycerol (DAG) oil, as well as corn germ, corn gluten feed pellets, syrup, starch, glucose, dextrose, crystalline dextrose, High fructose corn syrup sweeteners, cocoa liquor, cocoa powder, cocoa butter, chocolate, ethanol, and wheat flour. End uses are consumption by people, livestock, and fuel additives.

Long known as a food and ingredients company, ADM recently invested in fuel production. ADM nearly doubled capital spending in its 2007 budget to an estimated $1.12 billion. The increase is planned for bioenergy projects, focusing on ethanol and biodiesel.

www.adm.com