ExxonMobil: Low Carbon Ops Drive Higher 2025 Capex Spend


   
   OAKHURST, N.J. (DTN) --- ExxonMobil in its latest corporate plan reports 
total annual capital expenditures and exploration expense of $23 billion to $25 
billion in 2024 and $22 billion to $27 billion annually from 2025 through 2027. 
The increase in capex beginning in 2025 is driven by the growth in 
value-accretive Low Carbon Solutions opportunities to reduce emissions.

   ExxonMobil is pursuing more than $20 billion of lower-emissions 
opportunities through 2027, which represents the third increase in the last 
three years, from an initial $3 billion in projects identified in early 2021. 
This is in addition to the company's recent $5 billion all-stock acquisition of 
Denbury, which expanded carbon capture and storage opportunities through access 
to the largest CO2 pipeline network in the United States.

   The company is pursuing a portfolio of opportunities in lithium, hydrogen, 
biofuels, and carbon capture and storage that in aggregate is expected to 
generate returns of approximately 15% and could reduce third-party emissions by 
more than 50 million tons per annum by 2030. These lower emissions solutions 
help address climate change and closely align with ExxonMobil's competitive 
advantages and core capabilities. Approximately 50% of the planned investments 
support building the company's Low Carbon Solutions business, which reduces 
customers' greenhouse gas emissions.

   "We continue to see more opportunities to harness our technology, scale, and 
capabilities to implement real solutions to lower emissions and to profitably 
grow our Low Carbon Solutions business," said Darren Woods, chairman and CEO. 
"Success in accelerating emission reductions requires the development of 
nascent markets. We need technology-neutral durable policy support, transparent 
carbon pricing and accounting, and ultimately, customer commitments to support 
increased investment. We're actively advocating for each of these areas so we 
can grow a profitable, and ultimately large, low carbon business."

   ExxonMobil said it is developing a leading position in lithium, fully 
leveraging its upstream skills, such as geoscience, reservoir management, and 
efficient drilling. It also taps the company's downstream capabilities in fluid 
processing and extraction to separate the lithium from the brine. Work has 
begun for the company's first phase of lithium production in southwest 
Arkansas, an area known to have large, highly concentrated lithium deposits and 
first production is expected in 2027. The company is evaluating further growth 
opportunities in lithium globally. By 2030, ExxonMobil aims to produce enough 
lithium to supply the manufacturing needs of approximately 1 million electric 
vehicles per year.

   The company recognizes the significant uncertainty in how the energy 
transition and its low carbon business will develop and expects to pace 
emissions-reduction investments, effectively allocating resources as markets, 
customer commitments, and policy evolve. This minimizes the downside risks 
while establishing an advantaged position to capture and maximize the upside 
potential.

   The balance of ExxonMobil's low carbon capital will be used to reduce its 
own emissions in support of its 2030 emission reduction plans and its 2050 
Scope 1 and 2 net-zero ambition. In the Permian Basin, the company is on track 
to reach net-zero emissions for unconventional operations by 2030, and 
previously announced it also expects to leverage its Permian greenhouse gas 
reductions plans to accelerate Pioneer's net-zero ambition by 15 years, to 2035 
from 2050.

   The company's product solutions segment is leveraging scale and technology 
advantages to nearly triple earnings potential by 2027 versus 2019. Product 
solutions' earnings growth is being delivered through structural cost 
reductions, strategic project execution that will double sales of high-value 
products, and other earnings improvements such as higher reliability, more 
efficient maintenance, facility optimization projects, and commercial 
improvements including trading. The portfolio value is being continuously 
upgraded through divestments of non-strategic assets and continued investment 
in advantaged sites to increase high-value products such as the recent chemical 
expansion in Baytown.




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