While many smaller oil and gas producers slash spending, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, ExxonMobil yesterday announced its plan to use its massive profits from recent years to invest in new projects globally.

"The global economy is currently experiencing a downturn, but at ExxonMobil we are focused on the long term," Rex Tillerson, chairman and the CEO of Exxon Mobil told at the annual briefing for investment analysts at the New York Stock Exchange.

The oil and gas giant has unveiled ambitious investment plans for the future amounting to $150 billion in the coming six years with an annual outlay of $25 billion to $30 billion on exploration and capital projects to meet the long term global energy demand.

"Exxon Mobil's strong financial position, resulting from the strength of our business portfolio and our prudent approach to risk management and investment, enable us to develop new oil and gas projects, increase our production of higher value refined products, and grow our chemical business,'' Tillerson said.

The company plans to start nine new projects during the current year with a total capacity of 485,000 bpd oil equivalent (which includes natural gas), to attain a production level of 4 million bpd oil equivalent.

The world's second largest company and the largest in the petroleum sector ExxonMobil made record profits of $45 billion last year. However, the output was lowest since Exxon took over Mobil in 1999 and the company is on the look out for new reserves. A capital expenditure of $29 billion is planned for the current year.

Half of the amount will be spent on existing wells and projects which commence production this year and half will be spent on projects for next year.
Despite the fall in oil prices, the company has been spending steadily and spent about $26 billion in 2008 as well.

The spending envisaged in the coming years is expected the increase the output by 2 to 3 per cent annually in the coming 5 years.

The company said it was sitting on $31 billion in cash at the end of 2008.

Although rival companies ConocoPhillips and Marathon Oil are slow in spending in the current scenario, Tillerson says ''We believe it is important to ignore the noise generated by short-term fluctuations in the business cycle.''

The Exxon Mobil CEO is apprehensive about large oil discovery in Brazilian offshore and tells that, oil from there probably won't start flowing for years due to technical challenges and harsh operation conditions.

The company said gas will begin flowing from the first phase of its Piceance Basin project in Colorado by the end of March. Exxon Mobil is using a proprietary drilling technique that extracts twice as much as gas as conventional practices.

Exxon Mobil estimates that growth in worldwide demand for motor fuels will peak in this decade at an average annual rate of about 1.5 per cent, with slower rate in the subsequent two decades.

The return on average capital employed was high at 34 per cent in 2008 which is significantly higher than its closest competitor.
"Exxon Mobil is strong, resilient, and well positioned for the future," said Tillerson.

"Our commitment to developing advanced technology, our industry-leading operational and project-management capabilities and exceptional employees continue to position the company as the partner of choice for resource owners around the world."

Last year the Rockefeller family (Exxon Mobil was originally formed by two offsprings of John D.Rockefeller's Standard Oil Trust) challenged Exxon Mobil on the issues of splitting the roles of chairman and CEO, global warming, and renewable energy. However, the resolutions on all the above three issues were rejected at the annual general meeting of the company with only 39 per cent,31 per cent and 27 per cent of the investors, respectively, supporting the motions.