Exxon Almost Walked Away From Its $1 Trillion Oil Discovery

(Bloomberg Markets) — Scott Dyksterhuis was convinced. Or as convinced as you can be when predicting what lies more than 3 miles beneath the seabed. The then 32-year-old geoscientist for Exxon Mobil Corp. figured there was a good chance a vast trove of oil lay buried off the coast of Guyana, near where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Caribbean Sea. Now came the hard part. He had to persuade his bosses to drill a well that would prove it. “It was high-risk,” ­Dyksterhuis says. “But Guyana was a casino you wanted to play in because when you win, the profits are so high.” Read More