The farthest afield XTO has ventured is Alaska, where the geology is similar to that of west Texas.
Now, with natural gas prices near decade lows, it looks like he overpaid for XTO.
Gurus also scooped up shares of Fort Worth, Texas-based independent oil and gas producer XTO Energy.
ExxonMobil is also working in the Permian Basin again, in part by virtue of the XTO deal.
FORBES: Decades More To Drill In 90-Year-Old Permian Oilfields
With its acquisition of gas producer XTO Energy in 2010, Exxon Mobile moved boldly into the game.
Last year's champ, Renal Care Group, showed up in seven funds, as did XTO Energy and Getty Images.
In 2004 XTO entered the Barnett Shale, a large field in northern Texas, and got the rigs pumping with dispatch.
Valuation at XTO is compelling, with the stock trading at a 0.68 PEG ratio and at 10.9 times forecasted 2007 earnings.
The fields are too small for the biggies to keep working economically but are a perfect fit for XTO's slimmer cost structure.
With revenues up 53% and earnings advancing 28% over the last 12 months XTO is enjoying the fruits of high oil and gas prices.
The consistent line from Rex Tillerson was that Exxon had deep enough pockets to invest through the cycle after its acquisition of XTO in 2010.
Gurus also scooped up shares of Fort Worth, Texas-based independent oil and gas producer XTO Energy (nyse: XTO - news - people ).
Most gassy deals of late have involved global oil and gas supermajors, like ExxonMobil buying XTO Energy, and BP and Total picking up assets from Chesapeake Energy and others.
Given the difficulties these companies are facing, some investors have begun to wonder if Exxon bought XTO last year to "mask the extent of their replacement problem, " said R.
So the next year he and two Southland colleagues founded Cross Timbers Oil, now XTO Energy, to focus on what they'd done best at Southland: acquiring vintage properties much as Encore would later do.
The other option: Range gets bought out entirely by a big player with deep enough pockets to drill as much as it wants and a desire to catch up with post XTO-merger ExxonMobil in shale plays.
One envisions a situation, perhaps not unlike the Exxon-XTO Energy case, in which the grievances that lead to a lawsuit are fully aired on a social media channel, perhaps an activist site, that allows shareholders to vent any and all such grievances.
This figure is based in part on the thought that big oil companies like ExxonMobil, which recently agreed to buy the natural gas company XTO Energy, will increase investment in recovery technology to squeeze more gas out of huge stateside shale formations.
But XTO, with a smaller capital structure than the supermajors', is happy to invest in the neglected fields, using new techniques of 3-D imaging, horizontal drilling and so-called fracture stimulation--blowing open rock formations by injecting mudlike fluids down wells to get at big methane reservoirs.
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