ExxonMobil bumps up 2030 target for Permian production
ExxonMobil Corp., Houston, is looking to grow production in the Permian basin to about 2.5 MMboe/d by 2030, an increase of 200,000 boe/d from executives’ previous forecasts and a jump of more than 45% from this year’s output.
Helping drive that higher target is an expected 2030 cost profile that will be 10% lower than earlier guidance, thanks partly to efficiencies from combining operations with the former Pioneer Natural Resources.
The new mid-term Permian outlook was part of a broader update from Darren Woods, chairman and chief executive officer, and his team that lifted ExxonMobil’s global earnings and cash flow growth targets through 2030 by $5 billion from their year-ago iteration. Woods pointed out that the expected increase will require no more capital spending than before.
By 2030, Woods and his lieutenants expect ExxonMobil’s upstream operations to produce 5.5 million boe/d around the world, with 65% of that coming from what they call their “advantaged” upstream assets in the Permian and Guyana as well as ExxonMobil’s LNG business.
While the Permian will account for about 45% of 2030 total output, executives are looking for the basin to lead the way on profitability. Of the incremental $5 billion in expected upstream earnings growth, some 60% will come from both higher volumes and greater efficiencies (from greater use of lightweight proppants and dozens of other technologies) in the Permian that should lower the company’s cost of supply to about $30/bbl.
“Just last year, we were planning on roughly 30% higher resource recovery by 2030 versus 2019,” executives wrote in prepared remarks published Dec. 9. “With the progress we’ve made over the past year, we now expect around 50% higher recovery by 2030 for the new wells we drill and frac—halfway to our goal of doubling recovery.”
Looking to the shorter term and 2026, executives say they expect their Permian production to be about 1.8 MMboe/d, an increase from the nearly 1.7 MMboe/d they produced during the third quarter.
Total upstream production is forecast to be 4.9 MMboe/d compared to nearly 4.8 million in the third quarter.
Total capital spending next year will be $27-29 billion, which is generally in line with this year’s figure. From 2027 through 2030, Woods and his team think that total will rise to $28-32 billion.
Other highlights from the capital update included:
- Savings from the combination with Pioneer, which was completed in May of last year, are now expected to total $4 billion, double executives’ initial forecast.
- ExxonMobil will invest roughly $20 billion from this year through 2030 on investments in carbon materials, carbon capture, hydrogen, lithium and other lower-emission projects.
- Through 2030, Exxon’s leaders expect the company to generate $145 billion in surplus cash flow (based on $65/bbl Brent crude).
Shares of ExxonMobil (Ticker: XOM) were up more than 2% to nearly $119 in afternoon trading on Dec. 9. Over the past 6 months, shares have risen 13%, a move that has grown the company’s market capitalization to more than $505 billion.
About the Author
Geert De Lombaerde
Senior Editor
A native of Belgium, Geert De Lombaerde has more than two decades of business journalism experience and writes about markets and economic trends for Endeavor Business Media publications Healthcare Innovation, IndustryWeek, FleetOwner, Oil & Gas Journal and T&D World. With a degree in journalism from the University of Missouri, he began his reporting career at the Business Courier in Cincinnati and later was managing editor and editor of the Nashville Business Journal. Most recently, he oversaw the online and print products of the Nashville Post and reported primarily on Middle Tennessee’s finance sector as well as many of its publicly traded companies.