Exxon’s Raymond hands reins to Tillerson

…Declining gasoline prices have eased the calls for a windfall tax, but economists and analysts predict renewed criticism if winter heating-bill spikes coincide with more record earnings by late January. Fair or not, Exxon is the industry’s bellwether and its biggest bull’s eye.

“The industry set itself up for a shellacking,” said Matthew Simmons, a Houston oil and gas investment banker. “There has been a degree of non-chalantness. The big question is, if this is an unusual cycle, when will it right itself. If it does, how will we know?”
Either way, these growing quarterly profits shouldn’t come as a surprise, energy economists said. They are the product of multi-billion investments made 10 to 15 years ago that are beginning to show a return.

“What happened is they made investments they thought would pay off at $20 or $25 a barrel, but when oil went to $60 or $70 a barrel, that made them happier,” said a professor at Boston University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies.

AP