After 92 Years, Exxon Dropped From Dow Jones

[procon]

3. Some of those land acquisitions are placeholders

for future development. Big Oil will make the minimum improvements on the property, like an access road or a tool shed to give evidence of their development of the site. Then they disappear until the price of oil makes the expansion profitable.

Extraction of shale oil, fracking, and deep sea wells, we're all prohibitively expensive back in the day, but the oil extractors will secure a lease to hold the site for a later time when technologies and prices will be more attractive.