By Matt Daily

(Reuters) – Exxon Mobil’s vast size and massive profits have often put the oil giant in the crosshairs of critics, and its strict adherence to company protocols and philosophy has created an image of the company as impervious to outside pressure.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll’s new book “Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power” sought to delve inside the Irving, Texas-based company to see how it thinks and what drives its decisions.

May 3 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil’s vast size and massive
profits have often put the oil giant in the crosshairs of
critics, and its strict adherence to company protocols and
philosophy has created an image of the company as impervious to
outside pressure.

Two-time Pulitzer Prize winner Steve Coll’s new book
“Private Empire: Exxon Mobil and American Power” sought to delve
inside the Irving, Texas-based company to see how it thinks and
what drives its decisions.

By Matt Daily and Anna Driver

(Reuters) – Shares of Chesapeake Energy Corp posted their largest decline in more than three years on Wednesday as Chairman and Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon said he was “deeply sorry” for the turmoil caused by his personal financial dealings.

McClendon is under fire over investigations by Reuters into his personal financial dealings. He characterized many of the reports as “misinformation,” without elaborating.

By Matt Daily and Anna Driver

(Reuters) – Chesapeake Energy Corp shares fell sharply on Wednesday morning, even as Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Aubrey McClendon, under fire over investigations by Reuters into his personal financial dealings, criticized many of the reports as “misinformation.”

“There’s been enormous and unprecedented scrutiny of our company, and of me personally. And a great deal of misinformation has been published, and uncertainty created,” McClendon told an earnings conference call on Wednesday.

By Matt Daily and Braden Reddall

(Reuters) – Valero Energy Corp (VLO.N: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz) made a quarterly loss due to smaller discounts on the crude it processes and charges for shutting its Aruba refinery, but the underlying performance was better than expected and its shares rose 1.7 percent.

The U.S. refiner said it continued to benefit from strong exports, even as weak demand at home cut its income per barrel processed by more than half compared with a year earlier, to $2.11.

May 1 (Reuters) – U.S. oil refiner Valero Energy Corp
posted a first-quarter loss as discounts on the crude it
processes shrank and it took charges for shutting down its Aruba
plant.

Net loss for the quarter was $432 million, or 78 cents per
share, versus a profit of $104 million, or 18 cents per share, a
year earlier.

April 30 (Reuters) – Exxon Mobil Corp has shut the
North Line crude oil pipeline in Louisiana after a leak spilled
1,900 barrels of crude oil in a rural area over the weekend,
affecting a conduit that supplies the nation’s third-largest
refinery.

The 22-inch line originates in St. James, Louisiana and
provides shippers with access to oil from the giant Louisiana
Offshore Oil Port, the St. James terminal as well as offshore
Louisiana crude grades, according to Exxon’s website.

NEW YORK, April 26 (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and
Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry into
Chesapeake Energy Corp’s controversial program that
granted Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon a share in each of the
natural gas producer’s wells, a source familiar with the matter
said on Thursday.

That inquiry, being led by the SEC’s office in Fort Worth,
Texas, comes after Reuters reported about loans McClendon had
obtained on those wells that raised concerns about a potential
conflict of interest by the company’s CEO.

NEW YORK (Reuters) – The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has opened an informal inquiry into Chesapeake Energy Corp’s controversial program that granted Chief Executive Aubrey McClendon a share in each of the natural gas producer’s wells, a source familiar with the matter said on Thursday.

That inquiry, being led by the SEC’s office in Fort Worth, Texas, comes after Reuters reported about loans McClendon had obtained on those wells that raised concerns about a potential conflict of interest by the company’s CEO.

April 24 (Reuters) – North America’s shift to oil drilling
from natural gas will squeeze profit margins for the oilfield
service industry through 2012, Baker Hughes Inc and
Weatherford International said Tuesday.

That echoed the sentiment from Halliburton, the
market leader in North America, which warned last week that
prices for services it provided to oil and gas companies
drilling in shale fields were under pressure.