Has The Story Under ExxonMobil Stock Run Out?

ExxonMobil (XOM) stock returned 50.7% in the twelve months to October 2, 2026, against 16.4% for the S&P 500. The latest results in that period were shaped by a Middle East conflict that took fuel supply off the market, and by how much oil ExxonMobil was producing. Nobody could have known in advance when that conflict would come. So was any part of the run visible at ExxonMobil before the stock moved?

ExxonMobil Said It Was Pumping More Before The Run

Part of it was visible, because management said it out loud. On the third-quarter 2024 call, held on November 1, 2024, management said Pioneer, a wholly owned subsidiary of ExxonMobil, had added 770,000 oil-equivalent barrels per day. That call came eleven months before the run began.

Management added to that on the second-quarter 2025 call, held on August 1, 2025. It said more than half of ExxonMobil’s oil and natural gas production came from what it called “high-return” sources. So management had told you twice that the company was producing more and that most of its production paid well.

The accounts pointed the other way, and that made the sign easy to miss. Revenue in the second quarter of 2025 was $79.5 billion, down 11.7% from a year earlier, in a report filed on August 4, 2025. If you had read only the sales figures for that quarter, you would have seen sales falling.

How Much Of ExxonMobil’s Run Was Its Own?

Not all of it, because Chevron returned 39.0% over the same twelve months. A good part of the run appears to have belonged to oil stocks as a group. That part looks like the conflict’s doing, and no earnings call could have told you it was coming.

ExxonMobil’s own part is harder to size. Revenue in the latest quarter was $114.5 billion, up 44.1% from a year earlier. ExxonMobil earned that even though it had temporarily lost about 10% of its oil and gas production, management said on the July 31, 2026 call. Outside the Middle East, management added, production was the highest in more than two decades. That looks like the growth management had been describing since November 2024.

Is ExxonMobil’s Production Outside The Middle East Still Growing?

In the Permian basin it was, at the last report. On the July 31, 2026 call, management said production there had set another record, at more than 1.8 million oil-equivalent barrels per day.

The lift from prices is less dependable than ExxonMobil’s added production. Management said on that call that the second quarter was shaped by disruption, and a disruption can end.

Guyana is where ExxonMobil’s next addition is due. Its project there had gross production of about 900,000 barrels per day in the second quarter of 2026. Management said a fifth production vessel sailed for Guyana in June and is on track to start up by the end of the year. A fifth vessel running by the end of the year, with gross production in Guyana above roughly 900,000 barrels per day, would show the project still growing. A delayed start-up, or gross production at or below that level, would show it has stalled.

Does This Mean You Should Act On XOM?

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