NEW YORK (Dow Jones) -- ExxonMobil Corp. expects to produce about 4 million barrels a day of oil and natural gas in 2009, Senior Vice President Mark Albers said Thursday.

The company anticipates growth of 2% to 3% a year for the next five years, Albers said. The 2009 production figure is up 2% from last year’s figure of 3.9 million barrels a day, but down 4% from 2007.
Exxon is one of the few producers that intends to increase its spending this year, despite a drop in oil prices of about 70% since last summer. Spending of $ 29 billion marks a $3 billion increase from 2008. Exxon plans to spend between $ 25 billion and $30 billion annually for the next five years.
That investment will allow production to steadily increase over that period and beyond, Albers said, speaking at the company’s annual presentation to analysts at the New York Stock Exchange.
Much of the production growth will come from natural gas, however. The company has nine major projects scheduled to start this year, many centered around the development of large gas fields in Qatar. The 2009 startups are projected to add 485,000 barrels a day to Exxon’s production at their peak.
Exxon expects to add about 1.5 million barrels a day of new production capacity by 2015.