Good morning, everyone. Welcome to ExxonMobil's Earnings Call. Today's call is being recorded.
We appreciate you joining us. I'm Jim Chapman, and I'm joined by Darren Woods, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer; and Neil Hansen, Senior Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. This quarter's presentation and prerecorded remarks are available on the Investors section of our website.
They're meant to accompany this quarter's earnings release, which is posted in the same location. During today's presentation, we'll make forward-looking remarks, including comments on our long-term plans, which are subject to risks and uncertainties. Please read our cautionary statement on Slide 2.
You can find more information on the risks and uncertainties that apply to any forward-looking statements in our SEC filings on our website. We also provide supplemental information at the end of our earnings slides, which are also posted on our website. And now I'll turn it over to Darren for opening remarks.
Good morning, and thank you for joining us. In the third quarter, conflict in the Middle East continued to create uncertainty across the region and beyond, disrupting trade flows and constraining supplies of crude, diesel, gasoline and other finished products critical to economies around the world. This lack of supply led to short markets and higher market prices.
We recognize the impact high prices have on people's lives and economic growth. We always have, which is why we have been constantly focused on efficiently growing advantaged production to keep markets supplied. That focus and commitment pays off in times like this.
Over the past decade, we've invested more than $200 billion. We've stayed focused on the fundamentals of demand and developing competitively advantaged projects that grow supply across the commodity cycle. That discipline has helped us build a bigger, stronger business that outperforms our competitors.
Our manufacturing complex in Beaumont, Texas, is a good example of that. In 2023, we completed a $2 billion expansion that added the equivalent of a medium-sized refinery. That investment paid for itself in about 3 years and is playing a critical role in meeting today's demand.
That is just one of the many decisions we've made over the years that are helping address current market challenges, particularly in refining. We are the largest nonstate-owned refiner in the world. Every day, we run about 3.6 million barrels of crude through our refineries and sell about 5.7 million barrels of gasoline, diesel and other finished products into markets around the world.
With products in short supply, our teams have done everything they can to keep prices down by maximizing production. Year-to-date, we have produced industry-leading volumes of diesel, roughly 1.1 million barrels per day. Global utilization of our fuels manufacturing facilities, excluding Middle East impacts, is at its highest level on record.
That helped put more products into the market when they were needed most. We're continuing to make investments to help meet future demand. Our U.S. Gulf Coast asset reconfiguration projects are expected to increase distillate yield by about 100,000 barrels per day with the first phase already underway at Baytown.
We have additional phases planned across our U.S. manufacturing sites to increase yields of diesel, lubricants and chemical feedstocks. Our global outlook projects that global energy demand will continue to grow through 2050, with oil and natural gas supplying more than half of the world's energy. Meeting that demand reliably will require continued investment across the industry, including in the Middle East.
The value of our investments is increasing with the organizational changes we've made. This quarter, our global supply chain and trading teams moved quickly as markets shifted, securing feedstocks, redirecting molecules and moving products where they were needed most. Since 2019, Energy Products unit earnings per barrel on a constant price and margin basis are up threefold.
We're seeing the benefits of our investments in Upstream as well. Excluding Middle East impacts, production volumes are up year-over-year, supported by continued growth in the Permian and Guyana. In Guyana, production from the Stabroek Block surpassed 1 billion barrels of oil, just 11 years after discovery.
No other major offshore development has reached that milestone as quickly. The closest took roughly 3 years longer. We expect our fifth development, Uaru, to start up in the fourth quarter.
In LNG, we're continuing to strengthen our portfolio. Cumulative LNG production in PNG has now surpassed 100 million tons with plans on track to further grow PNG production with the Papua LNG project, where we agreed to increase our working interest and assume operatorship. In Mozambique, we reached an agreement with Eni that will increase our operated interest in Rovuma LNG to 50% and exit our nonoperated acreage position.
Together, these developments represent a significant step forward in building an advantaged LNG portfolio. We're also continuing to build our Low-Carbon Solutions business. We received approval for the Rose Carbon Storage Project and began carbon capture and storage operations for Nucor, our third CCS startup for a third-party customer and second this year.
Technology continues to drive performance across the business. In the Permian, we're the only operator currently using automated drilling rigs. We have 3 in operation today.
In addition to significantly improving safety, they are delivering some of the strongest drilling performance in our fleet. We expect to expand their use to about 25% of our Permian fleet next year and approximately half by 2028, helping us continue to grow U.S. production safely and at a lower cost. Structural cost savings since 2019 are $16.9 billion, well on our way to $20 billion of cumulative savings by 2030.
Our stronger earnings power was reflected in $15.4 billion of GAAP earnings and $25.7 billion of cash flow from operations this quarter. That financial strength gives us the capacity to keep investing in advantaged opportunities while returning cash to shareholders. This quarter, we invested $7 billion in the business and returned $9.4 billion to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
Today, we announced a 4% increase in our dividend per share, marking our 44th consecutive year of annual dividend per share growth. We also announced plans to maintain share repurchases at $20 billion in 2027, assuming reasonable market conditions, reflecting our confidence in the strength of the business and our strategy to consistently grow shareholder distributions across commodity cycles. Finally, I'd like to recognize a positive development in Europe.
As you all know, I've been very critical of European policymakers and their ill-informed attempts to reduce emissions with impractical regulations that suffocate their economy and weaken the continent's energy security. They've done a lot of damage that their citizens will be paying for far into the future. The EU Methane Regulation was the most recent example.
We support the objective of reducing methane emissions, and we've backed that support with action. Since 2016, we've reduced methane intensity by more than 60% and recently received Gold Standard recognition from the UN's Oil and Gas Methane Partnership. The problem with the Methane Regulation is the unachievable schedule.
The EU passed the law and set a compliance date without putting in place the regulations needed to implement it. They, in effect, required companies to follow a rulebook before the rules were written. The result was an unworkable compliance problem for industry.
We made clear that ExxonMobil would comply with the law. And without a workable path to do so, we would stop importing into Europe. Fortunately, last week, the European Parliament voted to delay implementation by 3 years, giving the global industry time to implement systems to comply once the steps required to comply are defined.
We are encouraged by this decision and hope it is a sign of things to come. The message is simple. Sound policy must work in practice.
It should reduce emissions without sacrificing affordability, reliability or energy security. It also shouldn't seek to penalize companies that are meeting the critical needs of their people. Stepping back, the third quarter reinforced the strength of our strategy and the value of choices we've made over many years.
The results we're delivering today were made possible by disciplined investments through the last decade, and we're not done. We'll continue to invest and strengthen the business, helping meet society's need for reliable, affordable energy and products while growing earnings, cash flow and long-term value for shareholders. Thank you.
Thank you, Darren. Before we kick off Q&A, just one housekeeping item to note. Unlike the approach over the last several years, we do not plan to host a formal corporate plan update event in December.
Instead, following approval of this year's plan by our Board of Directors, we will reaffirm key 2027 planning metrics through a press release later this quarter, and we expect to provide additional color during our fourth quarter earnings call in late January. We continue to be enthusiastic about our outlook and our execution against the long-term plans we have previously communicated. So with that, we can move to Q&A. Throughout Q&A, references made to earnings may be related to adjusted earnings.
And as a reminder, we ask each participant to keep it to 1 question. And operator, we'll ask you to please open the line for the first question.
[Operator Instructions] Our first question will come from Devin McDermott with Morgan Stanley.
So I wanted to start on to start on refining. It was really strong operational and financial results this quarter. And it looks like you're also able to optimize feedstocks to improve Asia throughput a bit in light of everything going on.
But I really wanted to dive in further Darren, on some of your comments around what's next. You're one of the only companies that's materially expanded U.S. refining capacity over the last decade with the Beaumont project that you highlighted. You've been a leader in reconfigurations.
You've another one underway in the U.S. Gulf Coast. So I guess, like looking beyond the near-term how are you thinking about the longer-term outlook for refining? What does that mean for your appetite for further expansions, reconfiguration projects and give us some details on the specifics or steps that you're undertaking to continue to boost the profitability of that business.
Sure. And thanks for the question, Devin. As you know, we've been really on this journey of transforming the competitiveness of our refining circuit by investing selectively in refineries, which have scale, which have an integrated portfolio of high-value products, whether it's lubricants, chemicals, high-value petroleum products.
And so the work we've been doing is either investing to improve the yields and make them more competitive on a global cost of supply curve or and for refineries that didn't have the scale or some of that diversified product slate looking to find value where others see more opportunity than we do. And so we've been on that journey. I think we're at a stage today where the portfolio we have, we feel real good about.
And the organization has now been very focused on how can we continue to high grade our product slate and improve the yields across those refineries. And that's in our traditional petroleum products, but we're also expanding the aperture and not limiting those facilities to historical products, but thinking more broadly about how can we transform, further transform hydrogen carbon molecules to make products that meet the needs of modern life. And some of those examples that we've been talking about more broadly, Proxxima and carbon materials.
And my view is we'll continue to look for ways that we can leverage existing facilities to continue to make products that have high margins, high value. In the short-term, what we see is an opportunity to invest at a much lower than grassroots cost. You can think about leveraging the existing facilities and infrastructure at a site you can bring on capacity at half the cost roughly of grassroot facility.
So the economics work very well and it's just a function of what technology can you bring to bear. And with our now global technology organization, and the focus that the organization has on growing earnings and delivering bottom line value, we're finding more and more opportunities. So today, we're investing in Baytown.
Our plans include investments in Baton Rouge and Beaumont and that will significantly improve our production of diesel, chemical feedstocks and lubricants. And so that's the path we're on.
Yes. And Devin, maybe I can provide just a little bit of context on the benefit that we're seeing from having that approach of investing based on long-term fundamentals, having the financial capacity, the capital discipline to do that. If you just look at the diesel yield that was mentioned, we're up about 3.5% higher on diesel yield compared to 2019.
For this year alone, that represents another $1.5 billion of quarterly margins or if you look at it from a year-to-date perspective, it's $3.5 billion. So that approach to investing is really resulting in a more competitive, more resilient business. And I think we highlighted in the slides that on a constant margin basis, those investments have improved that volume and mix combined with lower structural costs have tripled the underlying unit earnings of energy products since 2019.
Great results. Appreciate the thoughts.
Your next question will come from Neil Mehta with Goldman Sachs.
Yes. Want to spend some time on capital returns another dividend bump this morning, but also gave some clarity into 2027 where you fixed the buyback at around $20 billion. So just your perspective on that and that $20 billion, is that a variable payment?
Or should we think of it as fixed? In other words, if oil was not $120 and oil was $60, is that still a commitment that you'd be able to make?
Yes. Sure. Neil, thanks for the question.
I'll start off here and then let's see if Neil here wants to jump in with any comments. But the way -- you know from the time really early on that I got into the job, we've been really focused on breaking out of this commodity cycle and chasing the cycle, but instead trying to drive a consistency across the business. And that manifested itself very early on by investing countercyclically, which was, at the time, pretty unusual in the industry.
And we continue to stay very focused on that, that we do not want to be subject to the market forces and have to flex our -- what we believe are foundational value pillars with capital investments based on the commodity cycle. We want to ride through those. Similarly, we want to provide a level of certainty, reliability and a shareholder distributions and primarily manifested in a continuously growing dividend.
That's something we've talked about for a long time and our track record demonstrates our commitment to that 44 consecutive years of increasing annual dividends. And so we're -- our strategy is to map a path to continue on that pace. And obviously, to do that and remain robust to bottom-of-cycle conditions, you want to be very cognizant of the dividend obligation that you create with that strategy because from our perspective, we're not going to ever cut our dividend.
So any increases we had becomes an obligation that we've got to commit to the future. Share buybacks help us maintain that. And so think of the strategy is as we continue to grow dividends, we continue to buy back shares, and we maintain a fairly consistent level of dividend obligation, we think makes sense.
And we do that across the cycle. And so in the good times when prices are high and income is high, cash generation has been high, we don't get over exuberant and commit to things that we don't feel like we can sustain for the long-term. And likewise, when times are a little tougher, and you're at the bottom of the cycle, we don't pull back from that commitment and continue and we use the balance sheet to supplement that.
And we think, over time, that results in a more effective capital allocation strategy, one that's more consistently engaged in the marketplace with respect to buybacks and one that satisfies our shareholders with continued growth that they can count on.
Yes. And Darren, maybe just to add. I mean our ability to undertake that strategy and eliminate really the distribution volatility across cycles with a deliberate growth in the dividend and ratable share purchases.
You're only able to do that if you have the financial capacity to do it. And as we've talked about, that is something that's really important to us. We further strengthen that balance sheet this quarter, lowering net debt by more than $9 billion.
Our net debt to capital is the strongest in the industry and really stronger than any, maybe except for one large cap industrial. So you have to have the financial capacity to be able to provide that certainty or less volatility in your distributions across cycles. And we've talked about it's the 44th year in a row that we've increased the dividend.
And if you look back from the time that the ExxonMobil merger occurred, we have bought back $345 billion in shares and that represents across that time frame, which is about 27 years, an average about $13 billion of share buybacks every single year. So again, the strategy to do that only allows you -- you're only allowed to execute that strategy if you have the financial capacity to do so. And if you go back to the beginning of this year, at the beginning of the year, we were actually leaning into the balance sheet a little bit to keep those distributions consistent.
Of course, now in this price and margin environment, we're building cash. But that financial capacity allows you to undertake that strategy.
Your next question will come from Arun Jayaram with JPMorgan.
I was wondering if you could take a step back and discuss your global gas strategy, you announced kind of increasing your interest in Mozambique and recently in Papua. I was wondering if you could just talk about those projects, obviously, you're ramping at Golden Pass and perhaps you could weave in just maybe a little bit of an update on Qatar, which is clearly a pillar of your natural gas portfolio.
Sure. Happy to do that, Arun. Thanks for the question.
I would say maybe just starting with the fundamental strategy and where you've seen us increase our ownership and then move into operatorship is that's pretty fundamental from our perspective. Over the last decade, we have really concentrated on growing a capability set that essentially is the best in the industry with respect to developing projects. We've developed, I think, best in the industry technology capability, and we've established a global operating organization to continue to increase the differentiation we have and our ability to operate facilities.
And from my perspective, those 3 areas, technology, projects and operations are fundamental value pillars that form the foundation for everything else that we do. And in order to bring that advantage to bear and have it manifest itself in returns and bottom line results is we've got to operate facilities and bring that capability set to each projects in each of the operations we're involved in. So that's, I would tell you, a fundamental strategy that we're executing across the portfolio.
And you're seeing that today in our LNG portfolio and some of the changes that we recently announced with respect to Papua and Rovuma and part of that is making sure that we have a share that's large enough to warrant the dedication of resources. So that's, I would say, what you see playing out in the short-term here that we've announced. I think more longer-term, we have -- we recognize the role that natural gas is going to play in powering the world far into the future and bringing those capabilities to bear to meet that need, we're growing our natural gas LNG portfolio, and our intention is to continue to do that.
So you see continued growth the steps that we're taking in Mozambique and Papua, Papua New Guinea are, I would say, stepping stones and actually represent what we think are even greater opportunities in those areas to grow the gas business. And so very focused on that and using our equity portfolio to then trade around the world. And so that's what you see kind of happening and having supply points geographically distributed that brings a lot of optionality and flexibility to supply the customer base.
With respect to Qatar, I don't have much of an update. I think QE has been out very explicit about what they see happening with the damages they've had at their facilities. I would just say we continue to see Qatar as being an incredibly important source of supply for the world for LNG that somehow some way that issues in the Middle East are going to have to be resolved and the Strait is going to have to open because those resources are critically needed and we have a continuing commitment to Qatar to participate in their business and their ventures with them and continue to find ways to maximize the value, and I see that relationship going far into the future.
Your next question will come from Bob Brackett with Bernstein.
Had a question around Golden Pass. Third-party data suggests it's pushing nameplate capacity on Train 1. You've got Train 2 and 3 coming next year.
What have you learned from Train 1? And how should we think about the pace of ramp of Train 2 and 3?
Yes. Thank you, Bob. You're right.
We've made good progress on Train 1. Obviously, we had the challenges a while ago with the contractor that we had engaged going bankrupt. It's been a challenge to come in and take it over like we did and progress it on the schedule that we did.
And so I think everything that we learned through that process and bringing on Train 1 and some of the challenges we've experienced in that have been learned and embedded in what we're doing with Train 2 and Train 3. So we have very high expectations that as we bring those trains on that we're going to see all the benefits of working through the challenges on Train 1. We're making good progress on Train 2.
Our expectation is we're going to basically be substantially complete by December, start the facilities commission and get that underway and then expect to achieve mechanical completion on Train 3 in mid-2027 is kind of the time frame that we're working on. But I think our organization have really leaned into the opportunity there, and we've challenged ourselves to make sure that everything that we've learned through this challenging period with the contractors and then working with the remaining contractors and with QatarEnergy that we take those and build them into the go-forward plans. We feel pretty good about that.
Your next question will come from Steve Richardson with Evercore.
Darren, I was wondering if you could come back to Lower 48. You hit your Permian guidance number earlier in the year, production is holding in there from the outside perspective. I was wondering if you could give us a sense of what you're seeing in the program.
I'm assuming you're pushing forward with some of the efficiencies and some of the technologies. And your 2030 numbers haven't changed, but how should we think about the kind of cadence of either growth or CapEx changes as we get into '27 from the Lower 48?
Yes. Thanks, Steve. Appreciate the question.
You're right, we've made good steady progress in the Permian. We never -- we've always said that production will be a bit lumpy as we come in. And so when we talk about a year-end number, and what you've seen in this case is we've achieved that a little ahead of schedule.
That's not inconsistent with think our history where we -- as the work and the wells are coming on, we're managing that. We're not real focused, as you know, on necessarily the volume target. It's really around making sure that we're executing it efficiently, deploying the capital efficiently and then very importantly, leveraging the technology work that we've been doing to maximize the value of that development project.
That's been one of the, I think real challenges is I feel really good about the effort between our -- the operation and the technology organization around continuing to innovate and find opportunities to deploy first in the world approaches to what we're doing there in the Permian. And I would tell you, the energy level in the company and the expectation of meeting the challenge I laid out several years ago about doubling recovery. We think there's a line of sight to that.
It's really a function of deploying the technology and then giving it time to manifest itself. And I think that's probably the biggest frustration is with the size of that development as we start to feather in these technologies, see some early signs of improved productivity, just takes time for that to manifest itself in the portfolio given the base size of it. But we feel really good about what we're seeing and we're early in, I would say, the demonstration of the benefits but extremely enthusiastic with what we're seeing.
And I think as we get a little more time under our belt, little more wells or that's deployed and a little more run time on those wells when we deployed it, we'll continue to adjust what we expect to deliver based on what we're learning there. But I would say I'm very, very optimistic.
Your next question will come from Betty Jiang with Barclays.
Steve, team me up perfectly because I have a follow-up on the Permian technology discussion. And I want to specifically, if I can ask about secondary recovery technologies. Just wondering if there's things that you have tested today and how big that opportunity could be in helping you achieve that aspiration of doubling resource recovery?
Yes. Thank you, Betty. I think you touched on a really important element of that -- meeting that objective.
So yes, it will be an important part of achieving the ultimate objective. And yes, the team is working on ideas for how we can improve secondary recovery. And I think again, in that space are pretty enthusiastic.
What I will tell you is in order to maximize the opportunity set there, the primary recovery needs to be optimized and thought about with that in mind as well. And so it's not just come back around and think about it after you finish the primary it is, you've got to think about secondary as you're developing your plans on the primary. And that understanding and the interdependencies of the technologies and how we're thinking about it, we feel really, really good about.
And so my sense is that piece of the equation will start to manifest itself further down the line, probably much more materially in the outer years beyond 2030 than what we're seeing here in the early years, which is really focused on the primary side of the equation. But absolutely critical part of what we're trying to do, and the team is very focused on that as well.
Your next question comes from Doug Leggate with Wolfe Research.
Douglas George Blyth Leggate
Darren, I realize you're not going to do an update in December, but the portfolio seems the longer-term portfolio seems like it's continuing to evolve with some of the changes you've made specifically LNG. So I wonder if you could just touch on how you see the trajectory evolving post 2030. I know it's early, but I want to be specific on Guyana because you've had a number of additional discoveries.
It looks like you're maybe lining up a ninth or 10th boat there. Any color you can offer would be great.
Yes. Well, as usual, Doug, you kind of right in my way of thinking with respect to going longer-term, we are very clearly focused as an organization in all the businesses and centralized organizations are clearly planning beyond the 2030 horizon because in this business, you've got to think long-term and be trying to develop discrete plans well passed in the horizon that we -- I think -- the Street cares about. And so we have been working those plans.
We've got a pretty good line of sight to those plans beyond 2030. And frankly, the thing that we're working on is increasing the level of confidence and specificity of those opportunities before we kind of bring them out and start talking about them publicly. So we're working to bring that and to get it out, so people can see the things that we are planning to do beyond 2030, but your observation is the right one, which is we've got a really good portfolio of projects going to manifest itself well beyond 2030, and we're anxious to share that with you, but I want to make sure that when we do that, we've got the level of confidence necessary to make those commitments.
Because as you know, when we put a plan out within the organization and externally, I view those as commitments. And so -- that's how we think about it, and we don't want to get ahead of ourselves, but it's looking pretty promising. Your point about Guyana.
I think it's a good one. There's -- we think there's still a lot of room to run. The team is working on that pretty focused.
And I think, again, we will continue to bring that on. You've accused us of being conservative in the past. I share that conviction with you.
That's generally my management philosophy when I'm working with our teams is -- and it comes back to making sure that we can deliver on the commitment. So we don't want to be forecast heroes here. But -- my expectation is we'll do better than what we've come out and talked about simply because as we go forward, we'll learn and we'll take those learnings into what we're doing and we'll get better than what we thought.
And hopefully, as we go forward, we'll keep rolling that -- those expectations out and defining those for you more clearly.
And maybe just to highlight a few other areas. Doug, you mentioned Guyana, obviously, going to be continue to be a contributor to that growth post 2030. We talked about Papua and Rovuma.
I think another key critical driver for our growth going forward is exploration. And it's a core component of our portfolio. We're committed to it.
I think, invested $1 billion a year over the last 5 years. You mentioned the discoveries in Guyana, but we've also had discoveries in Angola, and Cyprus, and we continue to expand our acreage portfolio and the rights for exploration. So I think that's going to continue to be a key part of that story post 2030.
And then if you look at the Product Solutions side, we've talked a lot about the strategy of upgrading lower-value products into higher-value products. And that's certainly the case with the investments that we've made to produce more diesel, but it also extends to areas like graphite materials and Proxxima systems. So those areas, again, I think, will be a key part of that growth going 2030.
So it's certainly Guyana, but it is a portfolio of activities with a strong focus on the desire to continue to grow the business after 2030. And certainly excited when we get to the right point to disclose those plans with you as we go forward.
Your next question will come from Biraj Borkhataria with RBC.
I wanted to follow up on Mozambique. It was a very interesting announcement today where it looks like you're swapping the interest in the floating development for the larger onshore part. And I completely understand the rationale for that deal on both sides.
I think it makes a lot of sense. Just wondering if you're still targeting an FID for Rovuma 4Q this year? And can you just touch on the sort of the remaining gating factors or anything outstanding there?
Yes. I appreciate the question, Biraj. I'm glad that you see the logic behind what we're trying to do there in Rovuma.
And yes, we are working with the partners and the government to advance that FID. We're still very much expect to FID that here as we get through the back end of this year, that is the current plan and expectation. But as you know, with all these projects, you've got a number of stakeholders and a number of hurdles to clear, and the team is working with those folks to kind of clear all those, but we're pretty optimistic that we'll close it by the end of the year here, and then we'll get busy on execution.
I do feel again, by bringing that -- making that change and bringing the upstream part of that development into the portfolio and managing it as one continuous project. We're already beginning to see opportunities to improve upon the capital and make that even more efficient. So feel really good about the changes that we've made here and the ability now today to bring the full weight capabilities and capacity of ExxonMobil to the full development and end-to-end development.
So I think we're going to see some benefits from that, that we've yet to quantify. So feel good about the changes that we've made there and looking forward to getting started on it.
Your next question will come from Manav Gupta with UBS.
You have one of the biggest global refining footprints. I'm trying to understand, given all the capacity downtime that we are seeing globally, how long do you think it will take to replenish the depleted product inventory? I'm trying to understand when could we see normalization of the refining cracks that are out there right now?
Well, thanks for the question, Manav. As you know, it's a hard one because there are a lot of variables impacting that, that, frankly, I certainly don't have a line of sight on in terms of how they're going to play out. So the way we've been thinking about it is different scenarios and what could develop.
But I think the first thing that's ultimately going to have to happen is the world's capacity has to get back to where it was prior to these conflicts. And that's certainly the Strait of Hormuz opening up and the attacks on refining capacity in the region to stop and for those facilities to get repaired and then product moving out of them consistently, that's going to be a critical piece of the equation right now, I'd say 1/3 of the shortage out there roughly is just the inability to get clean products out of the Middle East and into the world markets. The impact of Ukrainians bombing Russian refineries is significant as well.
Russia, we estimate kind of see roughly about half of Russia's refining capacity has been taken offline. And so a country that used to be a net exporter of clean products is now a net importer. And so that's a material impact on the world balances.
And that, I suspect it's going to take some time ultimately, when the conflict stops for those refineries to get rebuilt. So my expectation is -- and again, that's probably a little over 1/3 of the capacity that's capable of restoring balance. And so my view is that's going to be a lot longer to come online because 2 things have to happen, stop the hostilities and then start the repairs.
And then the third area where there's an opportunity is China has got capacity they could bring online and run at a little higher rate to put more exports out there. I think that's the other piece of the equation that can help bring markets back into balance. So I think those are the 3 variables that I see difficult to predict any one of those, frankly.
My guess would be it will take certainly well through next year before we see things getting back closer to normal, but it could be longer than that, frankly.
And I think, Darren, so much without knowing exactly how or when things will normalize. I think the one thing we are seeing is our ability to impact supply at scale. And you've certainly seen that with the investments that we've made over the last decade, our ability to bring on additional supply when the world needs it.
But it's also the operational excellence. I mean, the fact that we've been able to run our refineries at record utilization levels of around 84%, running our Gulf Coast refineries at crude unit utilization around 100%. And so even though we don't know exactly how things will normalize and when they'll come back to normal levels, what we are seeing is the organization is responding and our ability to provide supply to society at scale, I think, is a differentiator.
Your next question will come from Jean Ann Salisbury with Bank of America.
You noted in the prepared remarks that trading and optimization volumes are 4x what they were in 2019. Can you talk about whether that's mostly due to a structural strategy to build that business and maybe any specific examples that you've done there versus 2026 being an extremely volatile year and perhaps not representative of the norm?
Sure. Thanks for the question, Jean Ann. Let me maybe just start with a broader context because I think our trading organization has over the years, people have kind of come in and out of that and asking questions.
The way we look at that for a long time, we didn't have what I would say is a typical trading organization. And in 2018, as we moved the organization to value chain. So kind of coming out of that functional construct that we had, where we had refining and marketing separate, but instead piecing all that together and running the business as the value chain, we recognize the opportunity to take advantage of these integrated global businesses take advantage of the scale that we had and the breadth that we had across the world and across these integrated value chains to use trading as a channel to optimize our assets.
And I think that's a really important distinction between maybe many of the trading houses out there who tend to be more taking positions on the marketplace. Our trading organization has been focused and is focused on maximizing the value of our assets. And so I look at it as just another channel to market.
And their job is to basically in understanding the value chain, having a line of sight all along that value chain, we should be better informed and able to optimize and take positions and move barrels in a way that maximizes the value of the assets. And that's exactly what you see happening. And so rather than simply going out and taking positions or capturing arbitrage, there's, I think, a much more sophisticated approach to thinking about our footprint and how we maximize the value of that.
And we look at trading as a channel to market, just like we do retail in I&W and other parts of the business. And so that's the context I'd ask you to think about that organization and their primary objective. And that has been working very, very well.
And we have slowly been growing it. And that's the other thing is we're not rushing to bring in what I would say are traditional merchant traders, we're looking to bring in people who recognize this is a unique opportunity to contribute to the value of the corporation in a unique way with access to a very unique and advantaged portfolio. And so it's a very different approach to trading, and we're finding the right kind of people who value that approach.
And so that's been a slow growth and one that we're quite willing to take our time on to make sure we have the right capability in place. That's been happening and what you see in terms of the volume, one is just because that organization continues to bring people on and get bigger. And my expectation is we'll continue to do that in the right way with the quality of the individuals coming in, the key kind of critical path in terms of how quickly we grow.
And then the final point I'll make is you can't discount the market and the size of the opportunity. So certainly, that is weighing in on the results. But I would say it's on top of that broader strategy and approach that we're taking.
And maybe just to reiterate that point. I mean as you would imagine, those optimization capabilities are critically important, and they're more manifest when trade flows shift like we're seeing. And so that global reach that we have gives us more options to secure feedstock, redirect molecules, move products where they generate the most value for society and for the corporation.
So as Darren mentioned, it is a channel for us. It is an opportunity or a way for us to maximize the value of our assets and the products that we sell. It gives us the optionality and the flexibility and it particularly is manifest when you see things like today when those trade flows shift but our ability to then place products where they generate the most value, where they're most needed, the ability to place feedstocks in our refineries is a true differentiator for us.
But it's, again, all around this desire to maximize the assets and the value of our fully integrated value chain.
Your next question will come from Jason Gabelman with TD Cowen.
In the spirit of kind of exploring the portfolio beyond 2030. There's been reports both on your interest in Venezuela, which maybe has moved to the fore a bit more quickly than we had anticipated earlier in the year and then also interest in expanding your operational footprint in Kazakhstan with the Kashagan project. So I was hoping you could just touch on your aspirations in both of those regions.
Yes, sure. Happy to do that, Jason. I think, first of all, I would just caution everybody to take what's reported in the press with respect to Venezuela and ourselves with a little pinch of salt.
I think sometimes there's some maybe a little more exuberant than is warranted. We're -- in my mind, we're not behind or ahead of anything that I talked about going all the way back to January. We recognize, and I think if the world does that Venezuela has a lot of resource, it's a challenged resource with respect to the qualities of that crude and the challenges of producing it.
So we absolutely see a need for that resource at some point in the future, but it's going to have to be produced and developed at a very competitive cost in order for it to compete on the world markets. That's going to require a scale and a technology capability and an operating capability that, frankly, very few companies have. We believe we have advantages in that space and therefore, ultimately, we'll have a role, but like I said earlier, it's going to require some substantial changes to the way things have historically been done in Venezuela.
There is progress being made on those areas, working on fiscal regimes, working on legal regimes, working on investor protections. A number of things that are kind of in progress, but there's a way to go. And I would just tell you, we're going to make sure that before we commit that those are in place, and we have confidence that we have a viable project that's sustainable and will generate the returns required to compete in our portfolio, and I expect that to take time.
So we're working our way through it. We're not in a rush. We think that opportunities are going to be there for a while.
And so we're trying to be methodical and thorough. And I'd say that's how it's working. With Kazakhstan, I just think, again, another potential opportunity.
I think some of the constructs of the past have introduced a lot of complexity that hasn't allowed us and the industry to effectively develop those resources. And so we've left a lot of, I think, potential trapped. And as these ventures kind of proceed, we think there's an opportunity to optimize that, and we're working with the partners there.
We're working with the government to see if we can't find a better win-win proposition for all the players there, including ourselves and for the government of Kazakhstan and we see a line of sight to that. But again, it will take time to work our way through, and we've got some very constructive discussions happening today. And hopefully, those will come to fruition sometime here in the near future, but it's a work in progress.
Your next question will come from Sam Margolin with Wells Fargo.
I guess continuing on the theme of bringing an advantage to wherever you are. On the inorganic side, and the industry transaction pace is picking up, but some of what's going on is probably small for you. But nevertheless, it seems fairly active.
And you're moving to a place where the balance sheet has a tremendous amount of capacity. And so -- just wondering what your latest thoughts are on the capability to do something inorganic and deliver some of your proprietary edge to an asset that could stand for some improvement?
Yes. Well, thank you, Sam. I agree with your kind of your thesis in the way you're thinking about it.
And frankly, going all the way back when we started this effort to really focus on these core capabilities, try to build an advantage so we can improve our own operations and organic investment opportunities as well as inorganic one. So our view is this lever was going to help us across the board. And frankly, as we look forward with the ambitions that we have to grow earnings and cash flow, we're going to need every lever available to us.
So we're going to need exploration and going out and finding out new resources, we're going to need the ability to optimize the resources that we have and maximize recovery. And then we're going to need to take advantage of inorganic opportunities that are value accretive to the portfolio. And so I would tell you, we're actively working all aspects of that because we recognize it that all aspects are going to be required.
So I think that opportunity is there. Obviously, it's a function of finding the right partner organization and one where you can arrive at a mutually agreed value share, but I definitely think there's something there, and we're continuing to work it. And my suspicion is that as we get better and better and realize the advantages, the more deal space opens up and potentially more opportunity, but that's kind of, I'd say, an evolving space.
Sam, maybe I mean, you referenced this in your question that we bring a set of unique competitive advantages that inherently create deal space. And if you just look back on the prior acquisitions we've done recently, taken for an example, with Pioneer, and we've been able to double the synergies of that acquisition from $2 billion to $4 billion a year. If you look at Denbury and the acquisition of the GreenLine and the impact that's having on our approach to building out a CCS business.
I mean we now have, I think, 11 MTA under contract across 8 customers. So the history and the experience we've had is we've been able to demonstrate bringing those advantages those things that we do really well, more unique than anyone and we're able to accrete additional value to shareholders. And so again, as Darren mentioned, certainly a tool that we'll continue to look at, but we have to be patient and find those opportunities where we can bring that value and accrete additional value for shareholders.
Your next question will come from James West with Melius Research.
Something we've been looking into and thinking more about and occurred over a longer period of time is as Exxon has evolved over the last decade or 2, you've taken much more of an operatorship or a control stake in projects. And I'm assuming that's something that you've done -- you've tried to do this, but you've also proven that you have that operational expertise. And so curious if you could just talk about, has this been a disciplined approach?
Is this the approach going forward? Is this how you're thinking about the business? Or are we thinking about it correctly that you have meaningfully increase your operatorship percentage over time.
Yes. Thanks, James. You're spot on.
I think what you're observing is a reflection of the approach that we're moving towards, and we won't be able to execute it in all circumstances. But if you go back to the value thesis that we've been executing for the last decade. It's really -- we are uniquely positioned with a scale that, frankly, none of our competitors have and a portfolio of businesses with the synergies that none of our competitors have.
And so as we started transforming the organization and creating value chains and then centralizing these core capabilities, so think technology, projects, and operations, we're now, for the first time in the corporation's history, capable of learning -- taking all the best practices and learnings across our portfolio and in projects, whether those practices came from our traditional or historical refining projects organization or upstream project organization or chemical projects organization or, in fact, from our technology company, those are all now in one organization. And that organization is taking the best of the thinking that we have across the company, irrespective of what business or function it was in and applying that to the portfolio. And for projects, which was the first organization where we started that, we've seen huge, huge benefits and improvements in kind of bringing the best thinking of ExxonMobil across our entire portfolio together and to bring those to bear on our toughest challenges.
Technology was the second core organization that we did that. And again, we're seeing the real benefits of that where rather than organize ourselves around the company and the businesses that we've set up instead organized ourselves around the capabilities and then apply the best capabilities to the hardest problems. And I'll give you just one quick example of how that paid off, the lightweight proppant that we're now seeing deployed throughout the Permian and bringing significant value that was refining technologists who work on cokers, applying their understanding of coke morphology to a challenge in the upstream organization and coming up with a brand-new proppant cost-effective proppant.
So we wouldn't have had that with that technology. And we're seeing that again across all aspects of technology. And so that's bringing a huge advantage.
And then we just, for the first time ever in the company, established one operating organization so that people running LNG facilities are working with and collaborating with people who run refineries or traditional chemical plants and same with our offshore platform. So today, we're seeing a great mix across that. And that learning is unique to ExxonMobil in the industry and that - and we see huge value from that.
And then in order to realize that value, we've got to be in a position where we can bring it to bear on the projects that we're engaged with, which means we need to be an operator. And in order to justify that effort and that allocation of resource, we need to be an operator with a significant level -- a significant share of the project. And so that's how we're thinking about it.
We think we bring real value there. We bring value to our partners, and we bring value to the resource owners. And to date, that's really beginning to demonstrate itself.
And maybe I'll just add, Darren, that desire for more direct control over operations and project execution really is the direct result of the confidence we have in the organization. And we've talked about the operational excellence this quarter. But you look at Darren mentioned global projects, and their performance over time, we're executing double the number of mega projects in any of our IOCs, and that performance is yielding results.
They're delivering projects at 20% lower cost and 20% faster scheduled time. And so part of this desire to take more direct control of operations and project execution is the organization continues to perform really well in those areas.
We have time for one more question. Our final question comes from John Royall with Piper Sandler.
So my question is on the Middle East. You guided to a 350 kbd impact unchanged in 4Q. And I know a lot of that is wrapped up in Qatar LNG where you've had some damage.
But can you speak to the egress side in the UAE in terms of what you've been able to get out of the Strait or divert barrels elsewhere if applicable and just how that's evolved over the past quarter or so since the MOU ended?
Sure. Yes. Thanks for the question, John.
I think you're right. The impact that we're seeing from a volume standpoint is concentrated and Qatar in the loss of those trains and the inability to flow at the rates and transport LNG at the rates we were prior to the conflict. UAE production has been back up again, essentially consistent with where we've historically been.
The sales though have been deferred just based on the constraints. And so what we're seeing is while the production is being booked, the realization of that production is delayed simply as a function of the logistics and the ability to move the barrels out. We're working to basically improve upon that.
I know the UAE is very focused on developing more logistics routes to get barrels out and we're working with them on that. So our expectation is with time, we'll start to see the sales revenue catch up with the production numbers, but that today is certainly impacting us in the short-term.
All right. Thanks, John. Thanks, everybody, for joining this call and for your questions.
We're going to post a transcript of this call to the Investors section of our website by early next week, and have a good weekend.
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