Exxon And The Return Of Expensive Crude

With Middle East tensions at the center of the media again, the oil majors can't help but look very comfortable in their own skin. ExxonMobil specifically seems like it is set up to help fill in where disruptions could potentially take place, thanks to its diversified production base. As crude jumped back above $100 a barrel after U.S.-Iran talks failed to produce a deal, Exxon shares rose 2.6% in premarket trading. The U.S. is prepared to begin a blockade affecting traffic to and from Iranian ports, which is the sort of development a giant, globally diversified oil producer spends years preparing for.

The reason the market keeps defaulting to Exxon in moments like this is that the company already proved it had the scale and a growing mix of advantaged, lower-cost supply back in 2025. Exxon reported full-year 2025 earnings of $28.8 billion and distributed $37.2 billion to shareholders, including $17.2 billion of dividends and $20.0 billion of share repurchases. Net production reached 4.7 million oil-equivalent barrels per day, the company’s highest level in more than 40 years, with record output from the Permian at 1.6 million oil-equivalent barrels per day and from Guyana at more than 700,000 gross barrels per day.

Exxon’s footprint becomes a real advantage when enthusiasm over stronger crude gives way to concern about missing barrels. Exxon said its advantaged assets in the Permian, Guyana, and LNG represented 59% of production in 2025, up by about seven percentage points from 2024. While geopolitical shock is nobody's business plan, having the infrastructure in place for when things go sideways can still be very profitable. Exxon is a company that has already spent years positioning itself for exactly this kind of backdrop.

Still, on a morning when much of the market was busy repricing anxiety, Exxon offered something more familiar: a giant integrated producer with record output, heavy shareholder returns, and a commodity backdrop ideally built for when the world goes from "tense" to "sketchy". Crude is a difficult commodity to invest in and has never been known for rewarding anyone's certainty for very long. Exxon is not immune to its volatility, though in this case it happens to be sitting very pretty.

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