capital investments to meet future energy needs

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Meeting growing demand requires sustained investments, through periods of both low and high prices.

• Over the past two decades, from 1988 through 2007, ExxonMobil invested $191 billion in global oil and gas capital and exploration expenditures in the "Upstream" sector of our business, and earned nearly $200 billion.
• Our earnings over this period were almost entirely re-invested into developing new oil and gas supplies.

We are working hard to bring more oil and gas to market to meet growing energy needs. During the first half of 2008, our capital and exploration investments were $12.5 billion. Long-term solutions to enable reliable, affordable energy must include massive investment into finding new supplies of oil and gas and efficiently producing and using energy.

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• In 2007, our capital and exploration expenditures in a range of energy activities — including exploring for oil and gas and the expansion of production and refining capacity — were $21 billion.
• We estimate that they will average over $25 billion annually in the next five years (2008 - 2012). That amounts to more than half of the combined capital spending announced by the 13 member countries of OPEC.
• From 2008 to 2010, we expect to start up 19 new projects which, at peak, would collectively add more than 725,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day to ExxonMobil's production.
• In the first half of 2008, ExxonMobil spent more than $1 billion per day to produce energy and deliver energy and chemical products around the world.
  
• In the past 25 years (1983 to 2007), our capital and exploration expenditures of over $355 billion exceeded our earnings over the period.
• We depend on high earnings during the "up" cycle of our commodities-based business to sustain investment levels over the long-term, including the "down" cycles.