Word: oils
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...cozy arrangement for both sides. The companies to a limited extent can shop around for crude, rather than being tied to the countries 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...
Ultimately, the Sisters are dealing in an exhaustible asset: though the day when the oil begins to run out has been delayed, it will come. The companies prudently are putting huge sums into diversification. They own far more coal than firms that specialize in coal mining, are active in uranium production and solar power research. Exxon and Gulf are partners with Cities Service and the Canadian government in Syncrude, a company that will open a plant designed to squeeze oil at last from the famed Athabasca tar sands. The sands, in northern Alberta, have long been known to contain gigantic...
...guard against the day when the oil runs out, Exxon since 1970 has acquired coal reserves of more than 8 billion tons, and now operates several mines. It is also pushing some ventures far removed from oil. For example, early this year it introduced Qyx, a computer-programmed typewriter designed to undersell wordprocessing IBM and Xerox machines. One indication of Exxon's strength: it plans a staggering $24 billion in capital expenditures over the next four years, to be financed just about entirely out of its own cash, with little if any borrowing...
SHELL, No. 2 in oil and the biggest business of any kind based outside the U.S., increased profits about 9% last year, to $2.3 billion-almost as much as Exxon earned on far greater sales. Of all the Sisters, Shell seems best suited to benefit from the trend toward getting a larger share of profit from refining and marketing. The firm has long concentrated on those areas, to the point that outside the U.S. it buys around 60% of its crude from other companies. Says Shell's European coordinator Jan Choufoer: "Adding value to bought crude is the name...
...addition, Mobil has strengthened its position as an oil and gas producer with major interests in the North Sea and Alaska, and has had incredible luck in the Gulf of Mexico. Last year it sank 28 wildcat wells there and struck oil in 14, a feat about equal to a baseball player hitting .425. Mobil has the most important nonenergy businesses of all the Seven; in 1976 it completed a 100% takeover of Marcor, parent of Container Corp. of America and Montgomery Ward. Last year these subsidiaries earned $175 million, or 17.5% of Mobil's profits...