?During the past six months, a slew of announcements of high-profile E&P and oilfield-service executive retirements have landed on the editors’ desks.

• Apache Corp. founder and chairman Raymond Plank has turned over the reins to Steven Farris, long-time president, chief executive and chief operating officer, after leading the company for more than 50 years.
• One of 23 founders of Newfield Exploration Co., chief executive David Trice, is turning the top job over to Lee Boothby, senior vice president, acquisitions and business development, and will be nonexecutive chairman during the transition.
• Southwestern Energy Co. chairman and CEO Harold Korell, who led the transformation of the small once-Arkansas-based utility into an E&P powerhouse with first claim on the Fayetteville shale play, will retire this month as CEO, handing the job to Steve Mueller, president, and will retire as chairman in early 2010, assuming the role then of nonexecutive chairman.
• St. Mary Land & Exploration Co. chairman Mark Hellerstein, who relinquished the CEO role to Tony Best a couple of years ago, will retire as chairman this month. Board member Bill Sullivan, who built Anadarko Petroleum Corp.’s business in Algeria, will become chairman.
• Denbury Resources Inc. president and CEO Gareth Roberts will become co-chairman and a nonofficer chief strategist for the company at the end of June, when Phil Rykhoek, senior vice president and chief financial officer, takes over the CEO post; Tracy Evans, senior vice president, reservoir engineering, becomes president and chief operating officer; and Mark Allen, a vice president, becomes senior vice president and CFO.
• Rowan Cos. Inc. chairman and CEO Danny McNease has been succeeded by GlobalSantaFe Corp. executive vice president Matt Ralls as president and CEO and by board member Jack Lentz as chairman.
Each of these leaders has seen deep energy downcycles before and grown titan companies out of the wreckage of the busts. And, current downcycle circumstances are worsened by slow-to-spend capital markets. Add to the equation a headwind from Washington, says one energy-industry observer. And, all have bright understudies to whom they can hand the reins.

We surveyed a few leading industry members about what could be motivating these industry-makers to take their chips off the table.

“I would characterize the current decline in hydrocarbon prices, coupled with the Obama administration’s pending actions, as the perfect storm to impede domestic oil and gas investment,” says a private E&P founder and chief executive.

“These clearly create incentives to allocate capital elsewhere—both geographically and into other industries. This dislocation will?have a profound impact on our industry and our economy as a whole.”?

Another private E&P co-founder says, “People made money and recognize the recent past as a market high—and probably just as much an aberration as today’s low.”

And, another adds that there will be further consolidation in the industry, “which will cause a shrinking of the number of top-level executives.”

“We are at the generational watershed,” says a long-time energy-capital provider. “The baby boomers are getting to the age where alternatives to corporate life weigh more heavily on the scale of choices. I suspect this is the beginning of a ‘bulge’ in such departures.”

And, a retired E&P executive says, “I would add that, while we in the industry are hopeful that we aren’t heading into another 1986 oil bust, it is certainly a possibility. The job of managing an oil company in that environment—layoffs, shrinking budgets, passing on opportunities you know are good but can’t pursue, hostile takeovers, hassling with bankers, etc.—is very different than in an up—or even stable—market.”

Regardless of the reasons, many midlevel managers will be stepping up to the executive plate through and after this downcycle and assuming greater decision-making roles, meaning new banking and other relationships and a change in corporate culture.

The next energy E-suite regime faces a tremendous task: Keeping America’s lights on with a greatly reduced skilled E&P workforce, given that the generation behind today’s leaders is vastly smaller and much less experienced at finding oil and gas.

Let’s see those oil and gas prices then.

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