New York 1988

My new appointment in the New York head office was called GM, International Negotiations and Acquisitions. Much to my surprise, the job was in the Exploration Division. As I noted above, this was one of two arms of the whole E&P (Exploration & Production) business. The other arm was the Production Division, which was my home base and my area of expertise.

Because of the differing educational requirements and skill sets, there was never any movement of people between the two, that is, until I was the first and only person ever to cross the Rubicon.

I was paired with a very experienced and older individual, who set about teaching me the skills of an international negotiator.

The object of the business was to build on the work of regionally focused explorers who thought they had identified areas of countries which might be prospective for the presence of oil and gas. The next step was to check if the host country wanted oil exploration. If that was the case we then sought to negotiate exploitation terms that would be good for both sides i.e., both Mobil, and the host country. Sometimes another oil company might have already acquired access to the area of interest and so we would go negotiate with the company to see if we could “farm-in” to their acreage.

I learned a lot from my mentor, which stood me in good stead later on, when I was dealing with the Russians and Kazakhs.

While we did meet with other companies and governments, I think we pulled off only one substantial deal. That provided control over a vast area in the Peruvian jungle which the Explorers were convinced must have extensive hydrocarbon potential. After superhuman efforts to drill a wildcat well (transporting the parts of the rig by helicopter into the jungle), suffering attacks from the Túpac Amaru (a leftist guerrilla group,) it turned out the well was dry, and so all the efforts and expenses had been in vain.

On the domestic scene, there were the usual requirements: find a house and car and get the kids into a school. Normally, as an “International” staffer I would have been obligated to rent a house, as I did in New Orleans. However, in New Orleans the company had strongly urged me to apply for a Green Card with a view to ultimately take out US citizenship, which I did. As did the rest of the family. So now I could actually buy a house if I could afford to! I found a new-build house in Westport, CT. It was far out from the city in a well-heeled suburb. Its main claim to fame was that Paul Newman lived there. And so did many Wall Street types who had made lots of money in the ongoing bull stock market. I must have had a decent salary because I was able to secure a 30-year mortgage. But for the down payment it was necessary to sell the house in Monkstown, thus severing one of the links to Ireland.

The Mobil head office was on 42nd Street in Midtown Manhattan. I commuted in to the city by train from Westport, surrounded by the idle chatter of the bond trader passengers who were not bashful about touting their multiple cars, third homes and expensive vacations. The kids told me that they too were subject to similar boasts from their school classmates. However, the boasters’ comeuppance wasn’t far away. I remember on Black Monday (19 October 1987) standing stock still in Grand Central Station with all the other commuters watching in amazement as the illuminated crawl broadcast the plunging Dow. Next day on the train there was utter silence and before too much time had passed there were no more Wall Street types on the morning commute.

Fortunately our time in Westport was cut short when I was transferred to Calgary, Canada. I think we were all ready to get out of suburbia and to experience a new country. The only real irritant was the issue of the house which, for the first time, I was obligated to sell. Even back then (the 1980s) house ownership was a bit of a casino. Depending on the timing, one could make a lot of money or lose a lot! Being subject to the vagaries of the corporate world, I was not able to play the timing game, and so marketing a house became a real hassle whenever I changed locations, and somehow, I always had to sell at a loss.