Business: The Seven Sisters Still Rule

Five years after the crunch, most oil firms are as robust as ever

There’s no business like oil business.

—C.C. Pocock, chairman of Shell

A few 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 talked aggressively of also muscling in on the companies’ “downstream” refining and marketing operations. In the consuming countries, meanwhile, the Sisters faced painful marketing adjustments brought on by high prices and, in the U.S., a strong congressional drive to bust the oil majors into many smaller pieces. Worst of all, the companies seemed trapped in an over-the-hill business: all sorts of “experts” were saying that world oil production would peak as soon as the early 1980s, then start on an irreversible decline.

Instead, five years after the energy crisis hit, the Sisters’ power seems unshaken. Politically their clout is reviving: President Carter, who denounced Big Oil on TV only last fall, is now making an all-out effort to sell natural gas legislation that would allow the companies to raise prices and profits. Economically, in the first three months of this year, the Sisters sold 38% of all the oil moving in world trade, about as large a proportion as ever. Rising output from Alaska, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, where they dominate drilling, might even increase their future share. The new production, combined with a slowdown in consumption, has put off the day when the world will start running out of oil to the 1990s, or the early 21st century. Far from being menaced by scarcity, the companies just now must cope with a global glut.

Financially the picture is more mixed. World opinion tends to view them as a monolith, but the companies are quite independent and sharply competitive with each other—although they cooperate in all sorts of joint ventures. They have personalities about as varied as those of seven real-life sisters, and their performance differs too. Right now Texaco and Gulf are suffering through slumps that will be difficult to reverse. Some of the other companies’ profits are being held down by a number of factors. Among them: lower sales in Europe and bookkeeping losses incurred by translating foreign-currency accounts into weakening dollars (if and when the dollar steadies, the Sisters’ profits will rise).

Though all the Sisters’ sales are more than double those in the embargo year of 1973, when the cheap-oil era ended, only three of the companies earned more profit last year than they did then: Shell, Mobil and California Standard (SoCal), which markets under its Chevron Trademark. And none but SoCal has regained the peaks of 1974, when soaring prices gave them a one-shot windfall by raising the value of petroleum they held in inventory. The later profits from price boosts have gone primarily to the OPEC nationalizes of the oil. But the companies have done a creditable job of maintaining earnings through what amounts to an oil revolution, and for some the outlook is so bright as to make Pocock’s optimism seem understated. Once they pass the point at which the rising returns from Alaska, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico outweigh the enormous sums they are still spending to expand there, the Sisters will probably confront an unusual new problem for the 1980s: coping with a flood of profit so great that the men in charge literally will not know what to do with it.

All of which underscores the power and versatility that the Sisters 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.

The Sisters are all so enormous that their own executives find the figures 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.

Soon after nationalization, the OPEC countries realized they could not compete against the Sisters’ global distribution networks; the prospects of Kuwaiti refineries in Rotterdam and Saudi gas stations in Illinois evaporated quickly. Indeed, those countries that had their national oil companies sell crude directly to the world market were usually disappointed with the prices they got and the quantities they moved. So the OPEC countries have negotiated pacts under which the Sisters continue to pump the oil, for a fee, take a guaranteed share for themselves, and buy most of the rest at a fixed price.

It is a 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. We are relieved of that responsibility.”

Best of all, the OPEC governments allow the Sisters a reasonable profit. Last year the American partners in Aramco earned 27¢ per bbl. on their share of its output (they earned 25¢ in 1971, when they owned all the oil). The Saudis of course pocketed much more, and they are so pleased with the arrangement that they have never bothered to sign an agreement negotiated in 1976 to buy out the remaining 40% of Aramco. The companies are acting as if the agreement were in effect, paying the Saudi government as much as it would get if it were sole owner; thus the Saudis receive all the benefits of 100% control without having to put out money to complete the takeover.

The Sisters nonetheless have stepped up their search for non-OPEC crude—and they had the money to invest large sums in Alaska and the North Sea, where a drilling platform can cost as much as $1 billion. Those investments are now paying off, and meanwhile world oil consumption has slowed, partly because of a global decline in economic growth, partly because high prices have forced industry to conserve fuel. In the U.S., energy consumption used to rise exactly as fast as gross national product; now it is rising only half as fast.

The resulting oversupply of petroleum has given the Sisters many headaches, but it has helped them deal with a hostile postembargo political climate. Prices have stabilized, and public fury against the companies as alleged conspirators in a plot to create an artificial shortage and drive up prices has subsided. Consequently, the steam has gone out of efforts to break up Big Oil. In Washington, hardly anything is heard today of moves to force the oil majors into either vertical divestiture (splitting production and refining from transportation and marketing) or horizontal divestiture (making them get out of other energy fields, such as coal and uranium).

Still the Sisters have troubles. They must pay far more attention to marketing these days, since nationalizations have limited the opportunity for raising profits on crude production, and downstream profits are hard to come by in time of oversupply. In both Europe and the U.S., high-priced oil has led to a marketing revolution. All the companies are closing old gas stations and replacing them with fewer, bigger self-service units that pump more gas at a lower price but higher profit per gallon. Nonetheless, all the Sisters are reported to be losing money on European refining and marketing, and profits from chemical operations have been declining because of overcapacity and weak prices. The companies also are incensed by a British move to raise the tax on North Sea profits from 45% to 60%.

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 amounts of petroleum, but up to now the cost of extracting it has not been justified by the price. Some of the Sisters have moved heavily into metals, a field in which their geologists have considerable expertise. Shell produced and sold $1.2 billion worth of aluminum, copper, zinc and nickel last year, enough to rank it among the top 100 firms on the FORTUNE 500 index even if it had no oil.

Diversification should keep the Seven formidable for the foreseeable future, though their individual fortunes vary:

EXXON, the world’s largest energy concern, suffered an 8% drop in profit last year, to $2.4 billion, but only because the weakness of the dollar increased the number of greenbacks that will be needed to pay off its foreign debts. In the first half of this year, however, its net increased 13%, to $1.4 billion, and the quarterly dividend was raised 10¢ a share, to 85¢. Exxon is a prize example of strength begetting strength. It has bid top dollar on the choicest drilling leases around the world and has participated in all the major new finds; it has a 25% interest in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay fields, and a major stake in the North Sea.

To 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 of our game.”

To that end, Shell has gone farther than any of the Sisters toward “whitening” its production—that is, squeezing more high-profit gasoline, kerosene and other light fuels out of each barrel of crude. It is also profiting handsomely from its 30% interest in the large natural-gas fields in The Netherlands.

MOBIL seems to be doing just about everything right. Its profits rose 7.5% last year, to just over $1 billion, and another 16% in the first half of 1978. Traditionally strong in marketing, it has been leading the swing to self-service gas stations in both the U.S. and Europe; indeed, it was the only Sister to earn a profit last year in the fiercely competitive West German market.

In 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.

TEXACO is currently a weak Sister. In 1977 its profits rose 7%, to $931 million, but in the first half of this year they plunged 28%. Domestically, Texaco stayed far too long with its Louisiana oilfields, where output is now dropping sharply, and overseas it has put too much of its money into Indonesia, where new finds are inadequate to replace the oil being lifted. It missed out on the choicest North Sea tracts, and must now spend enormous sums to develop fields less promising than those tapped by others. It has been drilling wells in Alaska but it has not yet found oil there.

The self-service marketing revolution caught Texaco with 40,000 U.S. gas stations, many small and inefficient. Though it has reduced the number to 30,000, they still barely match the sales of Shell’s 18,000 stations. Texaco, which long boasted that it was the only company to sell gas in every state, is now pulling out of all or part often states.

Much of the trouble traces to a conservative management obsessed with secrecy. It goes so far as to send the new employer of most technical people who leave Texaco a gratuitous letter demanding that the new boss not ask the employee to divulge any confidential information. One bright spot: Texaco has been the first to turn up signs of oil and gas in the Baltimore Canyon.

BRITISH PETROLEUM, 51% owned by its government, raised operating profits 6% in 1977, but capital-gains taxes cut total net about 10%, to $531 million. In this year’s first quarter, its earnings fell 44%, the probably temporary result of lower prices for North Sea crude and of marketing losses in Continental Europe. BP, which has total operating freedom from the politicians in Whitehall, has long emphasized crude production over marketing. The company produces the “blackest” barrel of oil in Europe—that with the largest proportion of low-profit heavy fuel—and early this year closed its biggest refinery, in Rotterdam, for two months because of poor sales. On the other hand, it has done the best job of any Sister in exploiting new oil finds and cutting itself loose from OPEC. As late as 1970, according to Chairman Sir David Steel, BP got 85% of its crude from OPEC countries; by 1985 the proportion will be down to 25%.

BP is the main developer of the Forties Field, the richest in the North Sea and first to come into large-scale production. In Alaska, a BP-Standard Oil of Ohio partnership controls 50% of present output. BP took Sohio stock in return for the money it invested in Alaska, and now has a controlling 51% share of a company that is a giant in its own right (1977 results: profit of $181 million on revenues of $3.5 billion).

SOCAL, one of the quietest Sisters, last year raised profits about 15%, to slightly over $1 billion. This year its net dipped a bit less than 3% in the first half, partly because of higher exploration expenses and lower earnings from Indonesia, where it is a 50-50 partner with Texaco in Caltex. SoCal pulled out of Libya when that country nationalized its oilfields, but still gets crude from Bahrain, Iran, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia (where it was the first to discover oil) and Venezuela.

Domestically it increased exploration outlays 44% last year, to $232 million, and found oil in Alaska, California, Wyoming and the Gulf of Mexico. SoCal has also bought 20% of Amax, the third largest U.S. coal company; it will start producing uranium in Texas next year, is negotiating to sell heat from geothermal wells in California, and builds houses.

GULF, the smallest of the Sisters, is as troubled as any except possibly Texaco. Last year profits dropped almost 8%, to $752 million, and in the first half of 1978 they fell a further 14%. An overambitious investment program has left the company short of cash and turned up little oil to supplement reserves nationalized in Kuwait and Venezuela. Gulf has no onshore stake in Alaska and little production so far in the North Sea.

The company diversified too widely too fast, and is now selling unprofitable real estate ventures, including the new town of Reston, Va., and a chain of trailer parks. Its uranium production has brought it a huge headache: lawsuits that could cost it as much as $1 billion (the company says no more than $300 million) arising out of its participation in a worldwide price-fixing cartel that Gulf said it was forced by the Canadian government to join. Some help should come from the start of production next year at new North Sea fields, a big oil strike in North Dakota, and acquisition last year of Kewanee Industries, a large chemical company. But Chairman Jerry McAfee does not expect to get the company turned around until he retires in 1981.

A the difficulties of Gulf and Texaco illustrate, nothing is ever certain about the oil business. However, oil analysts expect that, barring world recession or some other jolt, the Sisters in general should reach a new peak of profitability in the years 1979-82. Most will be getting a simultaneous payoff from Alaska, the North Sea and the Gulf of Mexico. Thereafter, they may have difficulty keeping to that level. While there is always a chance of another giant find, the prospect seems to be for deeper and deeper drilling in more and more remote spots to turn up less and less new oil.

Meanwhile, what to do with the money will be a problem. More will be invested in developing new kinds of energy—shale oil, solar power, coal gasification—but the Sisters expect utility-type regulation by governments that will hold down their return. There is still strong sentiment in Congress to limit, though not forbid, acquisitions in non-oil energy fields. Acquisitions of completely unrelated businesses, like Mobil’s link with Marcor, probably will be held back both by political opposition and by :he feeling of most oil managements that they should stick to fields in which petroleum expertise is useful. One solution would be to sink money into development of all kinds of natural resources: potash, salt, sulfur, phosphates. Another would 5e simply to distribute more cash to stockholders. In any case, it is a problem many other industries wish they could foresee.

* Ranked in order of 1977 revenues. Shell is shorthand for the Royal Dutch/Shell Group, owned by two private companies, The Netherlands’ Royal Dutch Petroleum (60%) and Britain’s “Shell” Transport & Trading (40%).