Word: exxon
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...years ago, such Ethel Mermanesque exuberance would have sounded strange coming from the chief of one of world oil's fabled Seven Sisters-Exxon, Shell, Mobil, Texaco, British Petroleum, Standard Oil of California and Gulf.* Though the sorocracy had ruled the international oil trade since it began, the upheaval in the business that started with the Arab embargo of 1973 threatened to end this reign. Flushed with their success in quintupling the price of petroleum, the OPEC countries were about to nationalize their oilfields, which would strip the Sisters of ownership of much of their crude reserves. Some governments...
...gain from sheer size. Different though they are, they all-again like real sisters-show a strong family resemblance. They are all vertically integrated companies controlling the flow of oil from well through pipeline and refinery to gasoline pump. All are multinationals; Shell operates in well over 100 countries, Exxon nearly as many...
...mind-boggling. They fill seven of the eleven top slots in the list of the world's largest industrial companies; General Motors, IBM and Ford are the only U.S. non-oil firms in their class. In size, the Sisters easily match many of the nations they deal with. Exxon's assets ($38 billion) and Shell's sales ($39 billion last year) are about equal to the Italian national budget...
...where they have wangled concessions. But they still get to sell the oil from those former concessions, and without having to put any money into new wells and pipelines. Case in point: Saudi Arabia, which has bought 60% of Aramco from the firms that created it 45 years ago, Exxon, Mobil, Texaco and SoCal. But the main result, as SoCal Chairman Harold J. Haynes describes it, is that "capital investment will be supplied by the Saudis. We are relieved of that responsibility...
They have also gained a foot in the corporate door. More than 50 companies have been interested in the program since its inception. Funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities, with grants from such corporations as A T & T, Exxon and General Motors, the program has established strong links between business and academe. Part of the mission has been to smash stereotypes. Says one Ph.D.: "It works both ways. Businessmen see us as people with no feet on the ground; we see them as ogres...