Exxon plans more than 20 projects worldwide

Exxon Mobil Corp. said Wednesday that it would spend some of its record profit on more than 20 new projects in the next three years, investments expected to add as many as 1 million barrels a day to its production.

Irving, Texas-based Exxon, the world’s largest publicly traded oil company, also said its project inventory at the end of 2006 had the potential to develop 24 billion barrels.

Chairman and Chief Executive Rex Tillerson said Exxon’s capital spending would be about $20 billion a year through the end of the decade. Capital spending in 2006 was nearly $20 billion, up $2.2 billion from 2005.

Tillerson told analysts during a presentation at the New York Stock Exchange that Exxon, which produces about 3% of the world’s oil, would pursue projects in mature markets such as North America, Australia and the North Sea as well as growth regions such as the Middle East, Russia and West Africa.

In South America, Tillerson said, the company had decided to turn over operational control of a joint venture project in Venezuela’s Orinoco River region to its partner, Petroleos de Venezuela, Venezuela’s government-controlled oil company.

Shares of Exxon rose 64 cents Wednesday to $71.64.