ExxonMobil’s $US59.5 billion ($93 billion) acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources, the biggest US energy deal in decades, is poised to usher in a new era of industry-shifting takeovers.
The shale sector is a hotbed of consolidation talk as cash-rich oil companies compete for the best drilling portfolios in the Permian Basin, North America’s biggest source of crude. Output from that region of West Texas and New Mexico has doubled in just six years to the point where it yields more oil daily than OPEC heavyweight Iraq.
