Murray as chairman and chief executive on March 1. Noto, already the president and chief operating officer, will take over from Mr. In the past five years Mobil shareholders have received a pre-tax annual return (combining dividends and stock increases) of about 17 percent, compared with an average of 13.5 percent among the major oil companies. He also must find enough customers to justify the company's $8 billion effort to develop one of the world's largest gas fields, in Qatar, at a time when other companies are also hurrying to bring on gas production.Īnd he must execute such risky plans while continuing to satisfy shareholders, who have become accustomed in recent years to rising dividends and stock prices. Noto is obligated to continue that streamlining - weak operations in France might be among the first to go - but also to strike deals to develop new reserves in politically perilous places like Vietnam, Russia and Kazakhstan as Mobil's major fields begin to run dry. His predecessor refocused the company on its core businesses, shedding Montgomery Ward and the Container Corporation, and began cutting costs in a big way, reducing the work force by about 15,000 over the past five years to 62,000. Noto, who is 55, has a broader challenge. All won him friends among the foreign officials and executives with whom Mobil needed to work. He gained a reputation for financial savvy, detailed knowledge of operations, social skills and sensitivity to other cultures.

He helped build Mobil's operations in Japan, then Italy, then Saudi Arabia. Noto's accomplishments were hard to overlook. Little-known at headquarters here until recent years, he was until last year a dark horse in the race to run the $64 billion company that is the nation's fourth-largest.īut with Mobil looking abroad for an increasing share of its business, Mr. And he made his reputation not in this country but overseas. He rose through the ranks at Mobil in planning and marketing, rather than winning acclaim with big finds in the exploration division. He's the Brooklyn-born son of the leader of a union local comprising mostly Italian immigrants. Murray atop the Mobil Corporation, is not typical of the men who have risen to the top of international oil giants.

Lucio noto