US-based energy giant ExxonMobil is aiming to increase its capital spending by 16 percent in 2017, reaching $22 billion.

The company expects its capital and exploration expenses through the end of the decade to average $25 billion annually.

Speaking at the company’s annual analyst meeting at the New York Stock Exchange, chairman and CEO Darren Woods said the company has to compete in any market, “regardless of conditions or price.”

More than one quarter of the planned spending this year will be made in high-value, short-cycle opportunities, including in the Permian and Bakken shale basins in the United States.

Total annual net production growth from these basins through 2025 could be as high as 750,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day at a compound annual growth rate of about 20 percent.

At the same time, the company will advance longer-term projects focused on growing higher-value production in locations including Canada, Guyana and the United Arab Emirates.

The company expects the startup of five major upstream projects in 2017 and 2018, which will contribute an additional 340,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day of working-interest production capacity.

Upstream volumes are projected to be in the range of 4 million to 4.4 million oil-equivalent barrels per day through 2020.

ExxonMobil recently completed its acquisition of InterOil to expand its acreage in Papua New Guinea and doubled its resource base in the Permian basin through another purchase.(source: LNG World News)