Darren W. Woods
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Exxon Mobil
Good morning and thanks for joining us. ExxonMobil's performance remains strong. In the second quarter, we delivered earnings of $9.2 billion, our second best second quarter results in the last 10 years. Just as important, we continue to improve the fundamental earnings power of the company as Kathy covers in her prepared remarks available on our website. Our overall market conditions were softer in the second quarter. Oil prices remained firm. As a reminder at Brent between $60 and $80 a barrel real and 10 year average refinery in chemical margins, we expect to generate between $80 billion and $140 billion in cumulative surplus cash from 2024 to 2027. The Pioneer acquisition increases that even further.
In the quarter, we once again set production records from our advantaged assets in Guyana and the Permian. Including Pioneer, our Permian production surged to 1.2 million barrels per day. In product solutions, our sales of high return performance products rose 5% sequentially to a new record. Our strong performance in the quarter continues to support our capital allocation priorities, including the distribution of $9.5 billion to shareholders of which $4.3 billion was in dividends. With the close of the Pioneer transaction, our shareholders now include the former owners of Pioneer stock who have begun to benefit from the strength of our combined companies. We welcome them to ExxonMobil just as we do the talented people of Pioneer who bring a strong entrepreneurial mindset and deep expertise in unconventional resource development.
I also want to recognize the combined transaction team for their excellence in execution. The average time to complete this type of merger over the last several years has been more than 11 months. We closed Pioneer in six, once again demonstrating the strength of our organization and effectively executing large, complicated projects, including large acquisitions. It is challenging work requiring deep thinking, a highly structured approach and disciplined action, areas where we excel. Although it's still early days, the integration is exceeding our expectations and I'm confident we'll deliver even more synergies than we've announced. The team looks forward to sharing these details and all the other work we're doing to significantly grow value at our corporate plan update and upstream spotlight in December.
As we look ahead, we see opportunities to grow value, not only through our corporate plan period, but long into the future. Later this month, we'll publish our global outlook, which projects global energy demand 15% higher in 2050 than it is today. We see oil demand holding steady at around 100 million barrels per day in 2050, while demand for renewables and natural gas grows considerably. In energy abundant future driven by economic growth and rising levels of prosperity creates opportunity for ExxonMobil, no matter the speed or direction of the energy transition.
Over time, as it becomes more and more obvious that heavy industry and commercial transportation will not be meaningfully powered by renewables, the world will come to rely more on technologies where we have an advantage, including hydrogen, biofuels and carbon capture and storage. A serious approach to the transition should focus on moving the world from high carbon to low carbon energy, not simply from oil and gas to wind and solar. The data, science and economics all support this as fundamentally necessary. Our strategy reflects this reality and since it relies on the same corporate capabilities and advantages under any scenario, it is extremely flexible delivering strong profitability irrespective of the path society takes.
As a technology company that transforms molecules to meet society's needs, we're now defined by our existing product suite. We began as a maker of kerosene for lamps. Today, no one thinks of ExxonMobil as a kerosene company serving the lamp industry. In the future, ExxonMobil will be defined by the technologies and products it is producing to meet the world's future needs as always by drawing our unique combination of competitive advantages. We shared with you a variety of technologies and products we're developing to more effectively meet existing needs while helping the world achieve a lower carbon future.
Two examples where I see significant new market potential are Proxxima and carbon materials. With Proxxima, we transform lower value gasoline molecules into a high performance, high value thermostat resin that can be used in coatings, lightweight construction materials and advanced composites for cars and trucks, including battery boxes for electric vehicles. Materials made with Proxxima are lighter, stronger, more durable and produced with significantly fewer GHG emissions than traditional alternatives. In March, we showcased the automotive uses of Proxxima at the world's leading international composite exhibition in Paris.
We're progressing projects in Texas with startups planned in 2025 that will significantly expand our production of Proxxima. We see the total addressable market for Proxxima at 5 million tons and $30 billion by 2030 with demand growing faster than GDP and returns above 15%. That's an exciting new business opportunity with significant profit potential where we have unique and hard to replicate advantages consistent with our strategy and core capabilities. We also see a sizable opportunity in carbon materials transforming the molecular structure of low value carbon rich feeds from our refining processes and the high value products for a range of applications.
We're targeting market segments with margins of several thousand dollars per ton and growth rates outpacing GDP. These include carbon fiber, polymer additives and battery materials. Our competitive advantages of scale, technology and integration combined with our North American manufacturing footprint provides a foundation for building these compelling new high margin businesses. I've challenged the product solutions team to lean into those opportunities and develop plans to accelerate the growth of both of these profitable new businesses. I hope we can ramp up investments to make them a meaningful part of our overall portfolio sooner, which will help further diversify earnings and significantly grow shareholder value for decades to come.
ExxonMobil has a long history of successfully establishing new high value use products for established and growing markets. Consider Vistamaxx which we launched to enhance the performance of everything from auto parts and construction materials to personal care products and packaging. We've grown our Vistamaxx performance polymer from five grades to 20 and total annual production capacity to 700,000 metric tons per annum with highly attractive returns and significantly more growth potential. Of course, consistent with the track record we've established over the last seven years, the hurdle for investing will be high. Any investment will have to generate competitive returns, possess clear competitive advantages and be resilient to the bottom of any commodity cycle. As we've demonstrated, our capital allocation decisions have generated robust earnings, cash flow and shareholder returns. I look forward to sharing more about our growth opportunities in December.
In closing, we have a lot to feel good about. Our performance is strong. Our merger with Pioneer is already creating tremendous value with more to come and we continue to develop products and build businesses that will enable us to grow profitably far into the future across a wide range of scenarios, including a rapid energy transition.
With that, we'd be happy to take your questions.
