Amid growing concerns about the reliability of oil supplies due to heightened tensions in the Strait of Hormuz, the strength and durability of multinational oil companies have come under scrutiny.
ExxonMobil (XOM +1.00%) announced yesterday that its operations in Guyana generated $4.7 billion in profit last year, highlighting the significance of the South American nation’s offshore oil boom as a buffer against the geopolitical crisis in the Middle East.
Incidentally, another supermajor, Chevron (CVX +1.24%), through its acquisition of Hess, had disclosed a $2.89 billion profit in 2025 from Guyana. It’s no secret that oil companies and investors are looking to diversify their energy investments away from any single region.
Image source: Getty Images.
The world's best oilfield nobody is talking about
At 6.6 million acres, the Stabroek block is a giant, low-cost, high-margin oil discovery located in deepwater territory. While ExxonMobil has a 45% working interest, Chevron has a 30% interest through Hess. The Chinese state-owned oil company CNOOC holds the remaining 25%.
Since ExxonMobil discovered this oilfield in 2015, the consortium has identified more than 11 billion barrels of recoverable oil, making it the largest crude oil discovery over the last decade.
What sets Stabroek apart is its economics. On some projects, including ExxonMobil's Yellowtail development, breakeven costs are as low as $25 per barrel, far below the global average and roughly half the onshore breakeven of many U.S. shale plays. EBITDA margins for ExxonMobil Guyana Limited hit 58% in 2024.
It’s difficult to dispute these numbers in an era when big oil's critics argue the sector faces structural decline.
Chevron's $53 billion bet is paying off
For Chevron, the acquisition of Hess, which closed in July 2025, was essentially a gamble to gain a foothold in Guyana, a move critical to the company’s long-term growth ambitions.
The timing now appears to favor Chevron. Production from the block reached 900,000 barrels per day in November 2025, a milestone achieved just a decade after the first discovery here. Given the complexity of deepwater projects, industry experts see this as an extraordinary achievement.
A fourth floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel, the ONE GUYANA, was commissioned in mid-2025, ramping up Chevron's overall production to a record high.
NYSE: CVX
Key Data Points
The growth runway looks lucrative
But beyond the companies' profits last year, the oilfield is expected to generate far greater profits in the coming years.
ExxonMobil intends to develop seven major projects on the Stabroek block with a combined investment exceeding $60 billion. The fifth and sixth projects, Uaru and Whiptail, are anticipated to begin production in 2026 and 2027, respectively, at approximately 250,000 barrels per day each.
The company is also expecting production from its seventh development, the $6.8 billion Hammerhead project, to begin in 2029.
Currently, ExxonMobil is awaiting regulatory approval for its eighth development, Longtail. Once approved, the total installed production capacity of the Stabroek block would reach 1.7 million barrels per day — more than the current output of OPEC members Libya and Nigeria.
The company estimates production capacity could exceed 1.2 million barrels per day by 2027, reaching 1.7 million barrels per day by 2030.
A project that boosts dividend growth
Guyana is emerging as perhaps one of the most influential upstream stories globally within energy – a place where two American supermajor oil companies are already generating billions in profit from an oilfield that is still very much in the early stages of its productive life.
However, there is an essential fact that investors need to recognize: Guyana is not an isolated trade. A share of profit from this lucrative oilfield is via two of the most investor-friendly balance sheets in the S&P 500.
ExxonMobil, for example, has delivered 43 consecutive years of annual dividend increases and plans to repurchase $20 billion worth of shares this year. Chevron, on the other hand, has increased its dividend payments for 39 consecutive years, and its dividend currently yields 3.81%. Both ExxonMobil and Chevron are essentially ideal candidates for income-seeking investors.
NYSE: XOM
Key Data Points
What’s in it for investors?
The investor takeaway is this: Guyana is a long-duration, low-cost oilfield that’s profitable for both companies across a wide range of oil price scenarios.
ExxonMobil's 2030 corporate plan targets $25 billion in earnings growth and $35 billion in cash flow growth versus 2024 levels without raising capital spending, with Guyana, the Permian Basin, and liquified natural gas (LNG) projects in Papua New Guinea and Mozambique expected to make up about 65% of company-wide production volumes by 2030 — which means retail investors are buying a portfolio, not a single asset.
Investors looking to build a diversified portfolio of energy investments that are structurally advantaged amid volatile oil prices should consider ExxonMobil and Chevron. These two are arguably the best dividend oil stocks to invest in, with Guyana becoming increasingly central to their investment cases.
