XOM · Forward model · Bear case

The Bear case, 20 quarters out

Model as of 2026-08-27

Each segment is projected from its own operating driver, rolled up into consolidated cash flow, and discounted back to a fair value per share. The assumptions below are editable — change them and every number on this page moves with them.

Five verticals - the four reportable segments net of intersegment eliminations plus the Corporate-and-Financing non-segment line - are the finest honest cut. They sum to reported Total revenues and other income to the dollar in all ten quarters from 2024 Q1 to 2026 Q2, which is the whole history available on this presentation: the segment note carrying the reconciling basis begins with the 2025 filings, whose comparatives reach 2024 Q1. Two quarters are marked estimated, 2024 Q4 and 2025 Q4, because they were derived by subtracting a nine-month figure from a full-year one; both reconcile to the quarterly revenue already in our stored series. No Permian-versus-Guyana split, no refining-versus-trading split and no polyethylene-versus-performance-chemicals split is attempted, because none is disclosed. Low Carbon Solutions has no revenue line at all and is not given one. Disclosed and copied as reported: segment revenue, segment volumes, realisations and markers, per-segment cash capex, the annual earnings sensitivities, the 3Q26 key items and the 2026 and 2030 volume, capex, cost-savings and buyback plans. Assumed and labelled as such: every forward price path, the terminal margins and capex intensities, the 30% tax rate, the 9% discount rate and the 9.0x exit multiple. All five verticals are aseasonal. Fourteen quarters of per-segment third-party sales across three calendar-year windows were tested and no vertical produced a factor whose deviation from 1.0 exceeded its own window-to-window spread - the largest signal is Upstream Q3 at 5.0% against a 66-point spread - so no seasonality vector is asserted. Two arithmetic artefacts are worth stating plainly. Upstream EBITDA is 127% of Upstream reported revenue in the basis quarter because transferred barrels sit in the numerator and not the denominator; the margin is capped at 100% and the $3,664M the cap cannot hold is credited to Energy Products, which buys those barrels, so consolidated EBITDA still reconciles. And the disclosed per-tonne unit-earnings figures for Chemical and Specialty Products cannot be reconciled to reported segment earnings - ~$210/T on 21.3 Mt would imply about $4.5B of 2025 Chemical earnings against the $800M the four 2025 quarters reported - so terminal margins are set from the reported segment note instead. Corporate overhead of 0.78% of revenue is the midpoint of the disclosed $0.8-1.0B of 3Q26 Corporate and Financing expenses. The share count is held flat at the 4,112M outstanding on 30 June; the disclosed ~$20B a year of buybacks would shrink it about 3.6% annually, so the per-share output here is conservative by roughly that much a year. Free cash flow in this model is EBITDA less capex less tax, which is not the company's own non-GAAP free cash flow of $17,236M for the quarter.

Where each case comes from

From cash flow to fair value

Capex outside the verticals

Each vertical's capex is a share of its own revenue, which is the right shape for capacity that scales with sales. These are not that: fixed-size programmes with their own schedule that spend whether or not any segment grows. They are added on top, and they are why free cash flow dips in the years below.

The projected path

The published model's 20 quarters. The horizon and sliders above do not change this table.

Every row is projected. A year-over-year change is shown only where the quarter it compares against exists — an em dash means there is no comparable quarter, not a flat year.

Model revisions

Assumptions are marked to reality as each quarter prints. Every change is appended here, with the fair value the model produced at the time, so the model's own history stays visible.