"Exxon Mobil Corp. agreed in January to pay as much as $6.6 billion to more than double its holdings in the Permian. On Thursday, Houston-based Marathon Oil Corp. said it would spend $1.1 billion to acquire 70,000 acres in the New Mexico portion of the play.
“People have focused on the Permian to the exclusion of lots of other basins, because it’s the best resource in the U.S.,” Aube said. “The economics have been working, and they’re getting better.”