ExxonMobil expects to expand oil, gas production to 5.4 million boe/d by 2030

ExxonMobil unveiled a corporate growth plan through 2030 to increase its oil and gas production to 5.4 million b/d of oil equivalent with 60% from advantaged upstream assets, outlined goals for its newly expanded Permian Basin operation and foresees two more Guyana projects, company executives said Dec. 11.

The ambitious targets call for capital expenditures of $27 billion to $29 billion in 2025, and $28 billion to $33 billion per year in 2026 to 2030, to build what ExxonMobil called "attractive long-term opportunities," over the next six years, the executives said during a webinar outlining its forward corporate plan.

ExxonMobil also projected 2024 oil and gas output to average 4.3 million boe/d. By 2027, total production should average around 5.1 million boe/d and in 2030, about 5.4 million boe/d, according to its presentation slides.

The 2025 capital plan reflects the first full year of the Pioneer Natural Resources acquisition in May 2024 that substantially expanded its Permian operation, and additional investment to build new businesses with base capex remaining flat, Darren Woods, the company's chairman and CEO, said.

"Our plans through 2030 ... grow our portfolio of advantaged investments projects with low cost of supply, higher returns and resilience to bottom-of-cycle conditions to sustain growth in our traditional businesses, while significantly growing our new businesses," Woods said. "Over the period we plan to invest about $140 billion in major projects that start up through 2030. At constant prices and margins, we expect these projects to generate $68 billion in cumulative earnings and returns of 33%."

Upstream advantaged assets grow output

Advantaged upstream projects in the Permian Basin, Guyana and LNG are the key to output growth in the next six years, Woods said, adding they now represent more than 50% of the company's upstream production and by 2030 will represent 60% of production.

For example, in the Permian Basin, the company is pioneering four-mile laterals – that is, the horizontal leg of a well – which are bringing more efficiencies to that operation, Senior Vice President Neil Chapman said.

The company is deploying many new technologies in the giant West Texas/southeast New Mexico basin, but two of the most effective are cube development in which wells are drilled simultaneously targeting multiple geologic intervals rather than one per interval, and a new ExxonMobil-developed lightweight proppant made of petroleum coke in the company's own refineries.

Cube development has been around for about a decade, but ExxonMobil has made enhancements to its cube design that leverages a broad range of technologies – spacing, for instance. That improvement should raise the value of its Permian resource by 15%, Chapman said, adding the proppant may also hike recoveries of up to 15%.

"This latest cube design is reducing the number of wells by 20% for the same resource recovery," he added.

As for the new proppant, its light weight allows it to travel deeper into the frac, but at the same time it is strong which is needed to keep the frac open to enable more flow of the oil, said Chapman.

"That's way better than we'd anticipated at this early stage of deployment ... for a small increase in cost," he said. "We'll have 200 of our wells next year using this technology. We estimate at full deployment ... we'll be using up to 2 million tons per year of petroleum coke."

Through application of its technology advantages to increase capital efficiency and resource recovery, ExxonMobil expects to roughly double production in the Permian Basin to roughly 2.3 million boe/d by 2030.

Optimizing Permian geologic horizons

"We see higher capital efficiency from additional benches [geologic substrata] becoming more economic, so as you get capital efficiency and resource recovery up, some of those lower Wolfcamp benches [such as the relatively shallower Jo Mill and the deeper Mississippian] become highly economic," Chapman said.

That is basically why the ExxonMobil-Pioneer total combined Permian resource has now been elevated to 18 billion boe from an earlier 16 billion boe, he added.

In addition, ExxonMobil and partners Hess Corp and China's CNOOC are planning two additional developments in Guyana – Hammerhead and Longtail – in addition to three already-producing FPSOs and three others in varying stages of construction. That brings the total number of Guyana developments to eight by 2030.

Hammerhead, the seventh oil development targeted for the partners' offshore Stabroek block, is a bit different than the others since its oil is a heavier grade – about 15 to 24 API, Chapman said, adding that contrasts with Liza, the first two fields, that are producing lighter oil of around 32-33 API.

Hammerhead will have a capacity of 150,000 b/d, and is predicted for a 2029 startup, although a full development plan is still in process.

Longtail, the projected eighth oil development, contains lighter crude than Liza -- about 40 API or so – and also gas condensate, Chapman said.

The two Liza developments plus Payara, the third development which came on in November 2023, currently produce roughly 660,000 b/d combined at Stabroek.

Development of the fourth, fifth and sixth sanctioned oil projects, named Yellowtail, Uaru and Whiptail, is ongoing and will be brought on respectively in 2025, 2026 and 2027. Each will have a capacity of 250,000 b/d.

That will bring total production capacity in Guyana to 1.7 million b/d with gross production growing to 1.3 million barrels per day by 2030, the company said.

Drilling Guyana at a faster pace

"Every year we're drilling at a faster pace" in Guyana, Chapman said. "We're now drilling at twice the speed in Guyana in deepwater that we were doing in 2019. As with the Permian, we're applying more of our advanced technology into Guyana which scale allows economic deployment of more intense seismic programs."

Moreover, additional opportunities will materialize with more computing power, which is a current limitation, he said.

As a result, ExxonMobil is "making a significant investment in high performance computing capacity on [our] campus," he added, which will be online in 2026. "It has the potential to reduce a typical timeline from data acquisition to action from 24 months to just three months [which allows] much better recovery from the reservoir."

Virtually all the Stabroek discoveries are sited in the southeast portion of the block, although there are two other regions – the northwest, which ExxonMobil Upstream President Liam Mallon called the "inaccessible wedge" that is virtually unexplored, and the central area where the major has recently been exploring.

Mallon said the Stabroek partners have "discovered some indications of hydrocarbon potential" in the central area, but no significant discoveries yet, Mallon said.

Since Stabroek becomes gassier going further southeast, the Guyana partners are talking to the country's government to define what kind of resources are available and what the development options are, he said.

Also, ExxonMobil has four world-class LNG projects under development and expects to surpass 40 million metric tons per year of LNG sales by 2030. The addition of these projects further expands the company's global LNG footprint and market access.

The company expects to reach first LNG sales from the Golden Pass development in the US and from the Qatar North Field East expansion project near the end of 2025. It also is targeting final investment decisions at Papua New Guinea's Papua project in 2025 and at Mozambique's Rovuma development in 2026.

Also, ExxonMobil's Product Solutions business is expected to grow annual earnings potential by an additional $8 billion by 2030, at average 2010-2019 margins – a 10% compound annual growth rate. Around half the earnings growth should come from advantaged and high-value products.

The company's pursuit of $30 billion of low emission opportunities from 2025 to 2030 will showcase almost 65% spent on reducing emissions for third-party customers. These projects are contingent on what the company called the "right" policy and regulation and also continued technology and market development.