ExxonMobil's Bold Bet on the Permian Basin: Massive Growth Ahead?

Exxon Mobil Corporation XOM continues to break records in the Permian – the most prolific shale play in the United States. Along with the second-quarter 2025 earnings, the largest integrated player announced that it produced around 1.6 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMBoE/D), marking its highest output ever from this area, highlighting the fact that Permian has already become central to its growth story.

XOM is using innovative technologies to achieve this. To keep underground cracks open, which continuously allow more oil and natural gas to flow out of wells, the large integrated energy company has been employing a special material called lightweight proppant. Thus, XOM has been successful in boosting recovery rates to 20% from 15% just a few months ago. This is how the energy giant has become successful in pulling out more oil from the same wells.

The integrated energy player is thus showcasing a solid production outlook for the years to come. In the most prolific basin, ExxonMobil projects a ramping up of production to 2.3 MMBoE/D by 2030, suggesting a jump from the current 1.6 MMBoE/D.

CVX & FANG’s Solid Permian Footprint

Like XOM,Chevron CVX and Diamondback Energy, Inc. FANG also produce significant volumes of oil and natural gas from the Permian.

Chevron has a strong footprint in the Permian. With more than 2 million net acres of land, CVX has been operating in the basin for more than 100 years.

Diamondback Energy is a pure-play Permian operator. FANG has a huge inventory of oil and gas wells, thereby showcasing a solid production outlook.

XOM’s Price Performance, Valuation & Estimates

Shares of XOM have declined 4.7% over the past year against the 4% rise of the industry.

From a valuation standpoint, XOM trades at a trailing 12-month enterprise value to EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) of 6.93X. This is above the broader industry average of 4.31X.

The Zacks Consensus Estimate for XOM’s 2025 earnings has been revised upward over the past seven days.

ExxonMobil currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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