ExxonMobil on track to reach 1 million boe/d Permian crude output by 2027

ExxonMobil remains on track to reach 1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day output from the Permian basin by 2027, company executives said in a fourth quarter earnings call Jan. 31.

"As we look to 1 million b/d by 2027, that's a 13% compounded annual growth rate," CEO Darren Woods said.

ExxonMobil's Permian output reached 560,000 boe/d during the fourth quarter, and the basin's full year 2022 output increased around 90,000 boe/d, the company said.

This production growth was aided by liquidating a significant portion of the drilled, but uncompleted wells constructed during the pandemic, Woods said.

"As we were in the pandemic there was obviously not a lot of incentive to bring production on and so we concentrated our spend on drilling. Then as we got into higher priced environments, we concentrated on clearing that inventory and bringing those wells into production," Woods said. "As we go into next year, we are going to rebuild that (DUC) inventory to get to an optimal level that we can use and maintain for the next several years."

Total fourth quarter global liquids production averaged 2.461 million b/d and total natural gas output was 8.167 bcf/d, for a combined output during the quarter of 3.822 million boe/d. This marked a 3.3% increase from the quarter prior but was only slightly higher than year-ago levels of 3.816 million boe/d.

Permian crude production is forecast to reach 600,000 boe/d, the company said, an increase of around 7% from Q4 levels.

The exhaustion of existing DUC inventory has been highlighted by other producers as a headwind to maintaining growth rates.

Chevron's Permian Basin production growth in 2023 will be "a bit lower" than the 16% increase achieved during the previous year in the giant West Texas and New Mexico basin because fewer "banked" wells will be available for easy production increases and also due to ongoing optimization work, CEO Mike Wirth said Jan. 27.

ExxonMobil also said that a 250,000 b/d expansion project at its Beaumont, Texas, refinery will be online during the first quarter of 2023. The company's fourth quarter 2022 global refinery throughputs averaged 3.983 million b/d, down 4.3% from the quarter prior and 3.3% compared with the same period in 2021.