ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM), the world’s largest publicly traded oil producer, boosted its 2017 capital budget on Jan. 31 by about 14%, betting that crude prices will continue to rise and that OPEC will honor its production curtailment agreement.
Exxon said it will increase spending to about $22 billion this year from $19.3 billion in 2016. The move came after peers Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX), Hess Corp. (NYSE: HES) and other oil producers boosted their own capital budgets for the year.
The higher spending is not due to rising prices for oilfield contract work or other services, Jeff Woodbury, Exxon’s vice president of investor relations, said on the conference call. It is a function of activity level increasing, Woodbury said.
Exxon’s announcement on an earnings conference call with investors came after the company posted a better-than-expected quarterly profit, helped by rising oil prices and lower costs.
The results reflected the slow and steady improvement in the global oil and gas industry as commodity prices inch higher after a two-year rout.
The quarterly report was Exxon’s first under Chief Executive Officer Darren Woods. Rex Tillerson, the former CEO, has been nominated by U.S. President Donald Trump to be secretary of state and is awaiting confirmation.
Exxon took a $2 billion charge to write down the value of Rocky Mountain natural gas assets, a rare move for a company that typically eschews such accounting methodologies.
Fourth-quarter earnings fell to $1.68 billion, or 41 cents per share, from $2.78 billion, or 67 cents per share, in the year-ago period.
Excluding the $2 billion writedown, Exxon earned 90 cents per share. By that measure, analysts expected 70 cents per share, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.
Production fell 3% to 4.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Earlier this month Exxon said it would pay up to $6.6 billion to double its holdings in the oil-rich Permian Basin of west Texas, the largest oil field in the U.S.
The deal “provides substantial opportunity for future growth,” Woodbury said on the conference call. Woods did not participate.
Exxon has come under attack by some investors claiming it tried to hide results of an internal study on climate change and lacked environmental expertise on its board. The company last week named Susan Avery, a climate scientist and environmentalist to its board, seeking to alleviate that concern.
Shares of Texas-based Exxon fell 1.2 percent to $83.86 in morning trading.
Recommended Reading
Exclusive: Can NatGas Save the 'Fragile' Electric Grid?
2024-02-28 - John Harpole, the founder and president of Mercator Energy, says he is concerned about meeting peak electric demand and if investors will hesitate on making LNG export facilities investment decisions after the Biden administration's recent LNG pause, in this Hart Energy LIVE Exclusive interview.
Exclusive: Chevron Balancing Low Carbon Intensity, Global Oil, Gas Needs
2024-03-28 - Colin Parfitt, president of midstream at Chevron, discusses how the company continues to grow its traditional oil and gas business while focusing on growing its new energies production, in this Hart Energy Exclusive interview.
Exclusive: Activists Sending 'Wrong Signal' on US LNG
2024-02-23 - Anne Bradbury, the CEO of the American Exploration & Production Council, says the Biden administration's pause on U.S. LNG export approvals sends a wrong message about the importance of LNG to the American economy and the climate, in this Hart Energy LIVE Exclusive interview.
Exclusive: Scott Tinker Says Pausing LNG Ups Coal Use
2024-02-20 - In this Hart Energy LIVE Exclusive interview, Scott Tinker, chairman of Switch Energy Alliance, talks about energy security globally, and dives into the effects of the Biden administration's LNG pause.
Exclusive: Andrew Dittmar Expects Increased Public M&A in 2024
2024-02-15 - In this Hart Energy LIVE Exclusive, Andrew Dittmar, Enverus Intelligence's senior vice president, compares 2023 consolidation to what he expects in 2024, including more public to public deals.