ExxonMobil, the largest U.S. energy group, plans to increase its shale oil production in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico fivefold to 500,000 barrels a day (bbl/d) in 2025, the company said on Jan. 30.

It is the latest sign of how large international companies are increasingly pinning their hopes for future growth on “unconventional” resources in North America. Rivals including Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell are also planning for expansion.

ExxonMobil has been building up its position in the Permian Basin with a series of acquisitions, including a deal a year ago to buy drilling rights on 250,000 acres from the Bass family for up to $6.6 billion. It has also been working to cut production costs, and says it can develop the resources profitably “at a range of prices”.

Total oil production in the Permian basin has roughly tripled in the past seven years as a result of the shale boom, from under 1MMbbl/d a day at the start of 2011 to about 2.8 MMbbl/d today, and Exxon’s plans suggest there is still potential for many more years of growth.

Most U.S. shale companies have struggled for profitability, and the industry as a whole has consistently lost money since the first successful shale oil wells were drilled in 2008-2009. Exxon itself lost $439 million on oil and gas production in the U.S. in the first nine months of 2017.

But Sara Ortwein, president of XTO Energy, ExxonMobil’s shale subsidiary, said cost reductions and the group’s ability to maximize the value of its resources by using its production in its own refineries and chemicals plants along the Gulf of Mexico coast, meant that it could increase output while making a profit in the Permian.

“What we bring to the party, beyond efficiency, is the full wherewithal of the company,” she said. “We’ve got the ability to bring it all together to get value from the entirety of the resource.”

To support that strategy, ExxonMobil last year bought a terminal for storing and handling crude oil in the Permian Basin, and it announced plans to invest more than $2 billion at that site and in other pipeline infrastructure in the region to help move its production.

Ortwein added that ExxonMobil also had an advantage because of its ability to support research and innovation, resulting in “leading edge” technology for shale production, including longer horizontal wells. In the past four years, ExxonMobil has cut the cost per foot of those horizontal wells by 70%.

The U.S. corporate tax cuts passed at the end of last year had created a favorable environment for investments such as the $2 billion commitment to oil pipeline infrastructure, Ortwein said.

Darren Woods, CEO, ExxonMobil, said in a blog post on Jan. 29 that the group planned to invest $50 billion in the U.S. over the next five years, including investments already announced in chemicals plants and other facilities in the Gulf of Mexico region.

“These are quality investments for our shareholders that are made even better by tax reform”, he wrote. He added that the company was “actively evaluating the impact of the lower tax rate on the economics of several other projects currently in the planning stages."

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