US mini-major ConocoPhillips plans capital spending of $7.2bn for 2022. This is up from not only the latest 2021 estimate of $5.3bn but from the firm’s long-term plan released in June which envisaged a $7bn average spend for 2022-2031 and a gradual ramp-up within this period with an implied figure of around $6.5bn for 2022.
Conoco says that the 2022 spending hike is entirely accounted for by assets in Texas’ Permian shale basin recently purchased from Shell: Conoco plans a 2022 spend of $700mn on these assets. The latest plan is “consistent on an underlying basis with the market update provided in June 2021,” Conoco says. “Although inflation and non-operated pressures have accelerated since that update, particularly in the Lower 48, the impacts of those factors have been mitigated by productivity improvements across our global, diverse asset base,” it adds. (CONTINUED - 427 WORDS)
