ConocoPhillips: The Making Of An Oil Major

If you asked Central Casting for an oil company CEO, you would not get James J. Mulva. He's a mild-mannered, soft-spoken number cruncher who started his career in the Phillips Petroleum Co. treasury office. In an industry filled with hard-nosed petroleum engineers, Mulva comes across as way too low-key to be the boss of ConocoPhillips (COP ), the No. 3 American major, behind Exxon Mobil (XOM ) and Chevron (CVX ).

But his actions paint a portrait that's more Mr. T than Mr. Rogers. As chief executive officer of the sleepy Bartlesville (Okla.)-based Phillips, Mulva conceived the bold $16 billion deal that created ConocoPhillips in 2002 and vaulted it into the league of energy giants so large they're called supermajors. Now he's shaping up as an aggressive risk-taker willing to place multibillion-dollar bets in the most volatile places on earth. All of the industry's big players are swimming in cash, but Mulva is plowing some 70% of the company's expected cash flow back into the business, compared with 60% at Chevron Corp. and 35% at Exxon Mobil Corp.. "We're aggressive about where we want to be five years from now," Mulva said to analysts on Nov. 16.