American drivers could hardly believe what was happening to them. In and around some of the nation's most populous cities, they sweated and swore through long lines that backed up, sometimes for miles, from those gas stations that were still open. Confused and angry about the gas famine and the whole energy crisis, they groped around for someone to blame. Many politicians and other people had a target ready: the oil companies. Because it is a symbol of big oil, and its stations dot the country, one company stood to take more than its share of criticism. It is the company that once told drivers that it would put a tiger in their tanks: Exxon Corp., by far the world's biggest, richest oil giant.
Petroleum U.N. Exxon may draw fire because it is in the lead, but it draws strength from its position as the industry's tough and durable old tiger. If the ultimate test of any organization is ability to grow and prosper amid wrenching changes, no organization has been more successful than Exxon. For 111 years, the business that has been variously known as the Standard Oil Trust, Standard Oil Co. (New Jersey), Esso and now Exxon has survived wars, expropriations, brutalizing competition, muckraking attacks and even dismemberment by the U.S. Supreme Court (in 1911). It has not only survived but has also grown -from a refinery in Cleveland to a global behemoth that sells petroleum in more than 100 countries through some 300 subsidiaries and affiliates that make up a "United Nations of oil." Not only grown but also prospered-so much so that last month it reported the largest annual profit ever earned by any industrial company: $2.4 billion after taxes.
Now Exxon's adaptability is being put to its stiffest test by the swiftest and most drastic changes in the business and political climate that oilmen have ever experienced. The world's voracious energy demands have combined with Arab embargoes and production cutbacks to create a shortage the end of which no one can foresee. Politically, governments in the Middle East, Africa, Asia and Latin America are asserting ownership rights to more and more of the petroleum pumped out by the "seven sisters" of world oil: Exxon, Royal Dutch/Shell, Texaco, Mobil, Gulf, Standard of California and British Petroleum. By the 1980s, the international oil companies could become mere contractors in much of the world, pumping oil that host-country governments will own and selling exactly as much as those governments direct, to the customers and at the prices the governments select.
In the U.S., the oil companies have come in for heavy criticism from Congress, which resounds with cries to roll back surging oil and gasoline prices, repeal special tax benefits that the oil companies get and slap on an excess-profits tax. A few Senators and Representatives are even talking seriously about wholly or partly nationalizing Exxon and other U.S. oil companies.
The threats and challenges have developed almost overnight. All through the 1960s, oilmen worried constantly that a worldwide glut would lead to a catastrophic slump in prices; gas stations lured motorists with price wars, contests and giveaways of drinking glasses and steak knives; oil-bearing countries eagerly offered rich drilling concessions. And the late House Speaker Sam Rayburn