Occidental Petroleum Corp.
Ray R. Irani
, 66
CEO since 1990
Industry:
Fuel
Sales:
$13.57 billion
Net Income:
$1.57 billion
Corporate Snapshot: OXY
Forums | Audio
Irani has turned the once-unwieldy conglomerate into a tightly focused, highly profitable oil and chemicals producer. He got out of businesses such as beef processing, sold off a slow-growing natural gas pipeline in the Midwest, and shrunk Oxy's global operations. This has allowed him to make major oil and gas acquisitions in California and Texas. While many rivals can only hope their international projects pan out one day, Irani's big bet on the U.S. is paying off now. Oxy's earnings more than tripled, to $1.57 billion, last year. High prices helped, but so did cost reductions. Oxy claims it now has the highest profits per barrel of any large energy company.
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Apache Corp.
Raymond Plank
, 78
CEO since 1966
Industry:
Fuel
Sales:
$2.28 billion
Net Income:
$721 million
Corporate Snapshot: APA
Forums | Audio
How successful was Apache in 2000? Consider this: The Houston oil and natural gas independent took 45 years to reach the $1 billion sales mark. It took just one more year—2000—to pass the $2 billion mark. Credit Plank's aggressive expansion. While many other independents sat on the sidelines as oil prices fell in 1998 and 1999, Plank sank his teeth into one buying opportunity after another. Those acquisitions, along with several more last year, allowed Apache to take advantage of surging oil and gas prices by increasing production 27%. Plank expects production to climb an additional 20% this year.
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Kerr-McGee Corp.
Luke R. Corbett
, 54
CEO since 1997
Industry:
Fuel
Sales:
$4.12 billion
Net Income:
$842 million
Corporate Snapshot: KMG
Forums | Audio
Kerr-McGee is an energy and inorganic chemical company—and it's not hard to figure out which of those businesses fueled most of its profits in 2000. A timely merger with Oryx Energy Co. in 1999 increased the company's worldwide oil and gas exploratory prospects, reserves, and production just as oil and natural gas prices began rising in the U.S. The Oklahoma City company also acquired a major producer of titanium dioxide pigment—a whitening agent used in consumer goods—which made it the world's third-largest producer. Since he took over, Corbett has more than doubled Kerr-McGee's assets, to $7.7 billion.
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Copyright 2001, Bloomberg L.P.
