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WITH an institutional culture that lies somewhere between the marines and the boy scouts, ExxonMobil tends to avoid personality cults. Even so, it is surprising how little is known about Darren Woods, the chief executive who last month succeeded Rex Tillerson, America’s new secretary of state. Mr Woods’s Wikipedia biography is a few lines long. Rather than reveal the year of his birth, ExxonMobil just says he is 52. Never mind: the most significant fact about him is that he comes from the refining and chemicals side of the business, which hums along so efficiently that ExxonMobil is widely considered the world’s best “integrated” oil company. Yet it is upstream—the exploration and production part—where his hardest tasks lie.

On January 31st the company reported another year of plunging profits, which have buffeted its share price since 2014 (see chart). It earned less in a year than it used to earn in a quarter, and also less than Exxon made before its $80bn merger with Mobil in 1999. Profits among its “Big Oil” peers have likewise been clobbered by falling oil prices over the past two and a half years. It is also not alone in having to borrow heavily to meet its dividend and investment obligations; last year it lost its coveted AAA credit rating.

Even so, it was a surprise that it took a $2bn hit on the value of some natural-gas assets in America; in the past it has avoided such write-downs. In coming weeks, it is expected to remove up to 4.6bn barrels of North American crude from its 25bn barrels of proved reserves, because they are too costly to produce profitably. That will be yet another rare occurrence.

It will add to a sense that ExxonMobil is struggling to find low-cost sources of oil production to prepare it for a world of potential oversupply. That impression has led its shares to lag behind those of Chevron, its biggest American rival, by 20% in the past year, as well as those of European peers, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and Total. Lysle Brinker, head of oil-company research at IHS Energy, a consultancy, says that, although historically ExxonMobil’s shares have traded at a higher premium to the value of its assets than its big rivals, in the past year “Chevron has overtaken it”.

In an effort to redress the problem, the company’s first deal in the Woods era has been a $6.6bn stock-and-cash purchase aimed at more than doubling its output in the Permian basin in Texas and New Mexico, to 350,000 barrels a day from 140,000. ExxonMobil hopes that acquiring more shale deposits will boost the proportion of oil and gas in its portfolio that is relatively quick and inexpensive to produce, compared with more costly and complex projects in places like the Russian Arctic. A potential boon is a bumper discovery in the oceans off Guyana, in South America.

Chevron has been far luckier. It clung onto legacy oilfields in the Permian that go back to the 1920s, and has 2m acres there, compared with the 250,000 recently bought by ExxonMobil. It has fared better from shale oil, whereas ExxonMobil bet big on shale gas via a $31bn merger in 2010 with XTO Energy. Since then gas assets have become even less valuable than oil ones, leaving ExxonMobil struggling to make amends.

An alternative for Mr Woods would be to do deals in the Persian Gulf, where oil is also cheap to produce but where there are rising competitive and geopolitical pressures. Mr Brinker notes that state-owned oil companies are nowadays offering less lucrative joint ventures to Western firms. A looming privatisation is likely to make Saudi Aramco, the only oil company that is bigger than ExxonMobil, into an even stronger competitor.

Adding to the challenges, Mr Woods takes over the company at a time when climate change is raising questions about future demand for fossil fuels. Environmental activists and increasing numbers of investors are demanding more transparency. On February 1st the firm appointed Susan Avery, an atmospheric scientist who formerly advised the UN, to its board. Some dismissed this as a publicity stunt. But it could be a bold move to shape its thinking on climate change.

One danger is that with its former boss standing shoulder to shoulder with Donald Trump, the firm reverts to its habit of insisting that it knows best. Many will be disheartened that, under pressure from companies including ExxonMobil, Republicans in Congress were this week planning to scrap a rule, aimed at reducing corruption in oil-rich countries, that forces firms to publish all payments to foreign governments. There is no reason to doubt ExxonMobil’s adherence to what it terms its “culture of integrity”. But it is increasingly important for oil firms not just to behave like good global citizens, but to be seen to do so, too.