Exxon and Chevron defy Trump pressure to boost oil production

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ExxonMobil and Chevron have defied calls from the White House to increase oil production, resisting pressure from an administration that is struggling to end the biggest energy crisis in decades.

Exxon’s chief financial officer Neil Hansen told the FT there had been “no change” to the company’s strategy in the Permian Basin, the dominant US oil and gas region, while Chevron’s finance chief Eimear Bonner said “the crisis has not prompted any change to any of our plans”.

The Iran war has slashed production across the Gulf and hit refining operations in the Middle East and beyond, triggering an energy shock that threatens to fuel inflation across the world.

Oil prices on Thursday rose to $126 a barrel, the highest level since the start of the war, while US petrol prices have soared to more than $4 a gallon, undermining President Donald Trump’s campaign pledge to bring them below $2 and make life cheaper for Americans.

The government has released oil from the strategic petroleum reserve and called for more drilling from the industry, but the two US supermajors are holding firm on their prewar strategies.

“There’s really no need for us to shift up because we’re already up, we’re already in high gear,” Hansen said. “That doesn’t mean we aren’t looking at the potential to expand that but there are limitations.”

Bonner said “we could grow in the Permian but that’s not the strategy we have. Our strategy is to grow free cash flow, not grow production.” She added: “You wouldn’t expect us to be changing our plans significantly on the back of eight weeks of disruption.”

Their comments came as the groups released their first-quarter results on Friday.

Exxon reported net income of $4.2bn in the three months to the end of March, down 46 per cent on the same period a year ago in a drop that was primarily the result of a $3.9bn paper loss on hedges linked to cargoes that have not yet been delivered. The company said it expected the mismatch to unwind in future months as contracts were completed.

The oil group has a high exposure to the crisis in the Middle East, with operations in the United Arab Emirates and Qatar accounting for 20 per cent of its oil production last year. Exxon in April warned that the conflict would cause a loss of 6 per cent of its global production in the first quarter.

“We delivered strong operational performance in a challenging environment,” chief executive Darren Woods said in the earnings call. Exxon said it would pay a second-quarter dividend of $1.03 a share.

In December, Exxon raised its production target to 5.5mn oil-equivalent barrels per day by 2030. The growth is coming from the Permian, where the company plans to reach 2mn barrels of production next year, and the South American country of Guyana, where Exxon hit a record production of 900,000 b/d in the first quarter.

“We’re going to continue on the pace that we’ve been at . . . we are running pretty full speed,” said Woods.

He pushed back against the spectre of US export bans, adding: “I’ve been very encouraged by the comments made by [US energy secretary Chris Wright] and the recognition that something like that would be hugely detrimental to the industry and the supply.”

Chevron, which is less exposed, reported net income of $2.2bn in the first quarter, a 37 per cent drop over the same period last year, but said it had $2.9bn worth of paper losses.

The company’s production rose by 500,000 b/d compared with the first quarter of 2025 as a result of the integration of US oil and gas producer Hess, higher production in the “Gulf of America” and growth in the Permian Basin.

Shares of Chevron and Exxon, which have risen almost 30 per cent this year, were both down 1 per cent in New York.

Both Exxon and Chevron, whose chief executive Mike Wirth was among a group of executives who met Trump this week, said they were running their refineries at record rates, capitalising on the high price of diesel and other refined products.