New XTO president came up through ExxonMobil
Sara N. Ortwein was named president of XTO Energy by ExxonMobil in November 2016. Prior to landing the XTO post, Ortwein served as president of ExxonMobil Upstream Research Company.
Sara Ortwein Heads to Fort Worth to Lead XTO Energy
Ortwein, a Houston native, joined Exxon Company U.S.A. in 1980 as a drilling engineer and has moved steadily up the ladder. In 1997, she was named reservoir evaluation and planning manager for Exxon Ventures, CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), focusing on new venture pursuit and capture in Russia, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
In 2001, she became a corporate upstream advisor to senior management at ExxonMobil headquarters in Irving, Texas. Three years later, she was named production manager for ExxonMobil’s operated U.S. production operations. In 2006, she was named vice president of engineering for ExxonMobil Development Company before assuming her leadership position with the upstream research company.
“The pace of the work and the people’s passion for what they were doing just really struck me,” Ortwein told the Houston Business Journal.
Ortwein earned a Bachelor of Science in Civil Engineering at the University of Texas at Austin before joining Exxon in 1980.
XTO at a glance
XTO merged with ExxonMobil in a deal valued at $41 billion in 2010. XTO has operations or properties in all of the major North American shale plays.
Source: XTO Energy
Ortwein is in charge of XTO’s 11 million acres, 40,000 gross operated wells and 139 Tcfe of natural gas resources in North America as well as its operational support in Argentina’s Vaca Muerta shale. Ortwein will oversee XTO’s 5,000 employees. XTO paid severance taxes amounting to $3.4 billion in 2015, the company reported.
