ExxonMobil has been ordered to reinstate two scientists who were fired after being suspected of leaking information to The Wall Street Journal, the US Labor Department said Friday.The Labor Department’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration also ordered ExxonMobil to pay the two employees back more than $800,000 in back wages, interest and compensatory damages.An article in The Wall Street Journal last year claimed ExxonMobil might have inflated its production estimates and the value of oil and gas wells in the Texas Permian Basin, where much of US production is located.The story scrutinized the company’s assumption in its 2019 SEC filings that drilling speed would increase substantially in the next five years.Exxon claimed it fired one scientist for “mishandling proprietary company information,” the Labor Department statement said, and the other for “having a ‘negative attitude,’ looking for other jobs, and losing the confidence of company management.”In a statement to CNN Business, Exxon denied the allegations and said that it will “defend itself accordingly.”“The terminations in late 2020 were unrelated to the ill-founded concerns raised by the employees in 2019,” an ExxonMobil spokesperson said."