Darren W. Woods
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Exxon Mobil
Good morning, and thanks for joining us today. As we laid out at our most recent Investor Day, our goal is to sustainably grow shareholder value through the execution of our strategic priorities seen on this slide. As we think about recent events, our job has never been clearer or more important. The need to meet society's evolving needs reliably and affordably is what consumers and businesses across the globe are demanding and what we delivered this quarter.
First, we continue to build our competitively advantaged production portfolio, bringing new barrels to market today, driven in part by the high-value investments we continue to progress through the pandemic-driven downturn in prices. A prime example of the benefits of our continued investments is Guyana. This quarter saw the successful start of Liza Phase 2. Production is ramping up ahead of schedule and is expected to reach capacity of 220,000 barrels of oil per day by the third quarter this year.
Combined with Liza Phase one, it will bring our total production capacity in Guyana to more than 340,000 barrels per day. Our third project, Payara, is running ahead of schedule with startup now likely by year-end 2023. Yellowtail, the fourth and largest project to date on the Stabroek block, received government approval of our development plan, is on schedule to start up in 2025. Further adding to our portfolio, we have made five new discoveries this year that have increased the estimated recoverable resources to nearly 11 billion oil-equivalent barrels.
Turning to the U.S., we continue to grow production in the Permian Basin. In March, we produced about 560,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day, on pace to deliver a 25% increase versus 2021. Looking forward, we're also growing our globally diverse portfolio of low-cost, capital-efficient LNG developments. In Mozambique, the 3.4 million ton per year Coral South floating LNG production vessel is being commissioned after arriving on site in January. Coral South is on budget with the first LNG cargo expected in the fourth quarter.
In addition to investing in high-value opportunities in our existing businesses, we are also advancing opportunities in our Low Carbon Solutions business. During the quarter, we announced plans to build a large-scale hydrogen plant in Baytown, Texas. We anticipate the facility will have the capacity to produce up to one billion cubic feet of hydrogen per day. Combined with carbon capture, transport and storage of approximately 10 million metric tons of CO2 per year, this facility will be a foundational investment in the development of a Houston CCS hub, which will have the potential to eliminate 100 million metric tons of CO2 per year and represents a meaningful step forward in advancing accretive, low-carbon solutions.
We also reached a final investment decision to expand another important carbon capture and storage project at our helium plant in Wyoming. In addition, we received the top certification of our management of methane emissions at our Poker Lake development in the Permian. We're the first company to achieve this certification for natural gas production associated with oil. At the end of the first quarter, we implemented a series of organizational changes to further leverage the scale and integration of the corporation, improve the effectiveness of our operations and better serve our customers.
We combined our Downstream and Chemical operations into a single Product Solutions business. This new, integrated business will be focused on developing high-value products, improving portfolio value and leading in sustainability. As a result of these changes, our company is now organized along three primary businesses: Upstream, Product Solutions and Low Carbon Solutions. These three businesses are supported by corporate-wide organizations, including projects, technology, engineering, operations, safety and sustainability.
Before I cover our financial results, I want to provide a perspective on the market environment. In the first quarter, a tight supply-demand environment, primarily due to low investment levels during the pandemic, contributed to rapid increases in prices for crude, natural gas and refined products. Clearly, the events in Ukraine have added uncertainty to what was already a tight supply outlook. Brent rose by about $22 per barrel or 27% versus the fourth quarter. Today, natural gas prices remain well above the 10-year historical ranges driven by tight global market conditions and ongoing European supply concerns.
The same tight supply-demand factors have also pushed refining margins near the top of the range. Chemical margins in Asia have fallen sharply with product prices lagging the steep increases in feed and energy cost. In our case, the U.S. ethane feed advantage provided a significant positive offset versus this global view. With that market environment as the backdrop, let me turn to our first quarter financials. Earnings totaled $8.8 billion, excluding an identified item, the after-tax charge associated with Sakhalin-1.
As you know, we are discontinuing our Sakhalin-1 operations in Russia, which represented less than 2% of our total production last year, about 65,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day, and about 1% of our corporate operating earnings. As the operator, our priority continues to be the health and safety of our people and the protection of the environment. Of course, we remain in full compliance with all U.S. sanctions and are closely coordinating with the U.S. administration. Turning to structural savings.
We continue to drive further efficiencies, now delivering more than $5 billion of annual savings versus 2019. capex totaled $4.9 billion for the quarter, in line with our full year guidance of $21 billion to $24 billion. Cash flow from operations was $14.8 billion, maintaining our strong balance sheet. Our debt-to-capital ratio remains in the low end of our 20% to 25% target range, while our net debt-to-capital ratio dropped to about 17%. We returned $5.8 billion to shareholders, of which about 2/3 was in the form of dividends and the remainder share repurchases, consistent with our previous program.
We said during our corporate plan update in December that we expect to repurchase $10 billion of our shares. This morning, we announced an increase to the program, up to $30 billion in total through 2023. This move reflects the confidence we have in our strategy, performance we are seeing across our businesses and the strength of our balance sheet. Before I leave you with a few key takeaways, let me share one other decision we made this month with respect to our workforce.
Continually investing in our people and maintaining a strong culture are core strategic priorities and essential to achieving our long-term objectives. As part of that effort, we are tripling the number of employees eligible for stock grants by bringing in high-performing employees at earlier stages of their careers. Our goal is to increase our people's ownership in the company and, importantly, in our financial and operating results. Secondly, in June, we will implement a 3% off-cycle compensation adjustment in the U.S. to maintain competitiveness.
Our compensation and benefits programs are a key element of our total value proposition that enables us to continue to attract and retain the best talent in the industry. Let me leave you with a few key takeaways. We had a strong first quarter, and I'm proud of the organization's progress. The impact of weather on the Upstream volumes and derivatives and timing impacts in the Downstream obscured a strong underlying performance. We anticipate an absence of these impacts and strong refining margins will position us very well in the second quarter.
We are making outstanding progress on our high-value growth developments in Guyana, the Permian and LNG. Our new Corpus Christi chemical complex is up and running ahead of schedule and generated positive earnings and cash flow in its first quarter of operations. We have strengthened the balance sheet and are creating value for shareholders through an attractive dividend and increased share repurchases. We are advancing hydrogen, biofuels and other low-carbon solutions, consistent with our intention to lead in the energy transition, leveraging our competitive advantages of scale, integration and technology.
Finally, we are evolving our organization from a holding company to an operating company to better serve our customers' evolving needs and grow long-term shareholder value. Before we take your questions, I want to acknowledge the very real impact the high prices are having on families all around the world. You may recall that we anticipated this in 2020 with industry investment levels well below those required to offset depletion. That's why we worked so hard to preserve our capital expenditures during the depths of the pandemic, ensure that additional production was available to meet the eventual recovery in demand.
Today, that long-term focus is paying off with growing production of industry-advantaged supply. We are continuing to focus on the fundamentals through ongoing investment in advantaged projects and low-emission initiatives to ensure that we can continue to meet the critical needs of people all around the world reliably and importantly well into the future.
