Dan Ammann, President, Exxon Mobil Upstream Co., speaks during the 2025 CERAWeek by S&P Global Conference in Houston. (Source: CERAWeek by S&P Global)
The Permian Basin’s development has entered a new phase of manufacturing, where scale and engineering prowess are paramount, according to Exxon Mobil’s new upstream leader.
Dan Ammann, formerly president of Exxon’s low carbon solutions business, took over as Exxon’s upstream president in February. He succeeded longtime Exxon upstream executive Liam Mallon.
Ammann’s path to leading Exxon’s upstream company was somewhat unconventional. Formerly president of General Motors, he ran the company’s autonomous vehicle subsidiary, Cruise, before joining Exxon in 2022.
He now leads an upstream segment increasingly focused on unconventional development in the Permian Basin.
Exxon closed a $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources last May, cementing it as the top Permian oil producer.
Exxon produces about 1.5 MMboe/d from the Permian today. The company plans to grow output to about 2.3 MMboe/d by 2030, Ammann said during the 2025 CERAWeek by S&P Global conference.
Scale in the Permian helps the unconventional assets stand out in Exxon’s global portfolio.
“Consolidation is leading to advantages for the very significant players,” Ammann said. “The contiguous acreage that we have allows you to do things that others are unable to do.”
One benefit of scale and blocky acreage is drilling longer laterals: “4-mile laterals are getting drilled now,” he said.
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Technology ‘will drive the increase’
Exxon is leveraging its expertise in technology and engineering in the Permian.
The company is reporting significant uplifts in recovery from deploying a patented lightweight proppant technology in its Permian wells.
The custom-made proppant, derived from a petroleum coke produced at Exxon’s refineries, has boosted Permian EURs by 15%.
“Today, we’re recovering somewhere between 6% to 8% of the total resources,” Ammann said. “The ability to unlock uncreased recovery of that through technology is a great way to continue to grow our production.”
Exxon is also seeing benefits from changes to its multi-bench “cube” development. Over the past five years, well spacing and frac sizes have been tested and tinkered across different parts of the Permian Basin.
The company’s latest cube designs reduce the number of wells needed by 20% for the same resource recovery, Exxon told investors last year.
The Permian is the main driver of U.S. crude oil production growth.
After averaging 6.3 MMbbl/d in 2024, Permian production is forecasted to rise to 6.65 MMbbl/d this year and 6.86 MMbbl/d in 2026, according to Energy Information Administration data.
U.S. production from other major regions—the Bakken, the Eagle Ford, the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska—will grow quite modestly over the next two years.
Daniel Yergin, S&P Global vice president and CERAWeek co-founder, posed a thoughtful question: Is there another Permian lurking somewhere for the U.S. in the future?
Probably not, Ammann said.
“I think it’s going to be more around unlocking the resource that we know is there,” he said. “Technology, the long laterals, the cube development: Those are the kinds of things that will drive the increase.”
Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub said technologies like enhanced oil recovery (EOR) and CO2 flooding in mature reservoirs could help sustain U.S. oil output.
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Doubling LNG business
Exxon has high ambitions for its future natural gas business.
Overall global energy demand is expected to grow by about 15% through 2050, according to Exxon estimates.
Today, oil and gas make up about 56% of the total energy mix. That percentage is “barely changing” by 2050—maybe around 54% in 2050, Ammann said.
Oil demand is expected to remain roughly flat around 100 MMbbl/d over that time. So, Exxon sees “a lot of the growth to meet that overall growth in energy demand coming from gas, in particular, LNG.”
“We’re quite bullish on LNG and the role of LNG,” he said.
Exxon plans to essentially double its LNG business over “the next number of years,” he said.
The company expects to grow its LNG supply to about 27 million tonnes per annum by 2027.
Exxon’s long-awaited Golden Pass LNG plant on the Gulf Coast is expected to start production this year. Golden Pass LNG has FERC approval to export 2.6 Bcf/d.
Exxon also has a vast portfolio of U.S. upstream gas production. U.S. gas output averaged about 3.26 Bcf/d in the fourth quarter, up from 3.14 Bcf/d the quarter before.
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