The world’s biggest oil companies have taken a beating since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries let prices fall last year in favor of pumping more crude, injecting a note of tension into a long-standing marriage of convenience. Oil company earnings plunged 50% in the first quarter from a year earlier. Some of the industry’s biggest projects are on ice, and a new mood of uncertainty hangs over the sector as it goes through a rough patch after years of stability. The meeting of the cartel this week amounts to a counseling session of sorts for global integrated oil companies and OPEC, as they all converge on Vienna. But no one expects the good times to return soon. OPEC, at its meeting here on Friday, appears likely to stay the course it set last November, keeping production levels the same . Some oil company executives see a rocky […]