ExxonMobil on Friday fired back in response to a report that it was under federal investigation for overvaluing its Permian Basin assets.

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According to a story published on Friday by The Wall Street Journal, the Securities and Exchange Commission is investigating ExxonMobil following a whistleblower complaint filed last fall. The complaint, said the newspaper, claims that the supermajor “overvalued one of its most important oil and gas properties, according to people familiar with the matter.”

The Journal said it had reviewed a complaint alleging that “several people” involved in valuing a Permian asset claimed that during an internal assessment in 2019, “employees were being forced to use unrealistic assumptions about how quickly the company could drill wells there to...