Passive income investing is a way to earn a steady stream of income by investing in businesses that consistently pay dividends to shareholders. One company with a long history of increasing its dividend payments to investors is ExxonMobil (XOM +1.87%), which has grown its annual dividend payout for 43 consecutive years.
Based on its current dividend yield of 2.7%, for every $10,000 you invest in ExxonMobil, you would earn $273 in dividend payments annually. If this sounds appealing to you, here's what you need to know about investing in ExxonMobil.
NYSE: XOM
Key Data Points
ExxonMobil has a highly efficient oil and gas business
ExxonMobil is a giant in the oil and gas industry. The company has an integrated business model that includes upstream operations, which are exploration and drilling, along with downstream operations of turning raw materials into fuels, petrochemicals, plastics, and more.
The oil and gas giant is aggressively shifting its portfolio toward what it calls advantaged assets, which have low production costs and high returns; these are expected to comprise 65% of its upstream production by 2030, up from 59% in 2025.
Image source: Getty Images.
The company also leverages technology to extract more value from similar resources than competitors do. For example, in the Permian Basin, the company uses cube development, which is drilling multiple wells at once to maximize recovery. It also uses a proprietary, lightweight proppant, which helps improve economics and make drilling more efficient. This proppant technology was used in 25% of its wells in 2025, and it expects to use it in 50% of its wells by late 2026.
Another advantage of ExxonMobil is its scale. Its centralized global projects organization executes three times as many mega-projects as its nearest competitor on average, helping it deliver lower costs. These efforts have helped ExxonMobil achieve $15.1 billion in cumulative structural cost savings since 2019.
ExxonMobil is positioned to deliver for investors
Production in the Permian reached a record 1.6 million oil-equivalent barrels per day. Looking forward, CEO Darren Woods stated, "Simply put, there is no near-term peak Permian for us," and projects production could exceed 2.5 million oil-equivalent barrels per day by 2030 thanks to continued drilling productivity gains and recovery-efficiency improvements.
ExxonMobil is an oil and gas giant that can be subject to fluctuations in the spot prices of these commodities. However, it has done an excellent job of managing its balance sheet and investing in high-yielding, high-performing oil wells and related technology. Its investments in lower-cost assets yield strong returns and keep it profitable even if oil prices fall from here, and it looks set to continue delivering for dividend investors for years to come.
