It requires a good understanding of the subsurface, requires a good understanding of reservoir management, requires drilling and injections. And so, I think the below surface things are very much in line with the skills and capabilities that we’ve built out over the decades in our upstream business. The processing of the brine and extracting the lithium is very consistent with a lot of the things that we do in our refineries and chemical plants and in fact, in some of our upstream operations. So that piece of the equation is, again, not new to the company. So as you look at all that, I think the capability, the skill set that we have, the operating experience that we have all lend themselves to that. And then, of course, there’s the question of how does the market fundamentals look and supply and demand?
And do we see a role for what we’re doing there? And frankly, we’ve been looking at that for quite some time. I’d say we’re still early in evaluating the opportunity, but we believe that by, again, applying our advantages in this space that we can bring on a much needed resource, lithium, one that’s predicted to go short, we can bring it on at a much lower cost. And I think importantly, with much less environmental impact versus, say, the open mining that they’re doing in other parts of the world. So this, to us, feels like a potential win-win-win opportunity, a win using our capabilities, a win from an environmental impact standpoint and a win in terms of supplying markets with a crucial component to electrification and EV. So, I think that’s kind of how we’re thinking about it.
And we’re, I’d say, actively exploring that opportunity set and like what we’re seeing so far.
Jason Gabelman: Great. That’s really helpful color. Thanks.
Darren Woods: You bet.
Operator: We’ll go next to Josh Silverstein with UBS.
Josh Silverstein: Thanks. Good morning, guys. The cash balance is still around $30 billion for about four quarters now. And Kathy, last quarter, you mentioned that you were comfortable holding the larger balance because of the net positive spread in interest rates versus your debt cost. The spread is still there, so you’re probably not in a rush to do anything, but just wondering if this is still the best use of cash versus deploying it into higher rate of return projects or buybacks. And if the forward curve holds the current kind of strip right now, can you foresee Exxon going into a net cash position next year? Thanks.
Kathy Mikells: Sure. And so, we’re pretty happy with our overall balance sheet position right now. And I’ve stated for a couple of quarters now that we expect our cash balance is going to ebb and flow a little bit just based on how the commodity price environment and margin environment ebbs and flows. So we think it’s pretty critical to hang on to a really strong balance sheet because it gives us the flexibility that we need through the cycle. If you look overall at what we’re doing from an investment perspective, I would say we’re never trying to constrain the organization in terms of deploying good capital investments. And that’s across our entire business. It includes our LCS business. Obviously, the acquisition of Denbury will enable us to accelerate the growth of our carbon capture and sequestration business within LCS.
And we’re excited about that opportunity and profitably growing that part of our business. So I think it’s really important when we talk about capital deployment that we are not trying to constrain the company from new capital projects that can drive good returns for our shareholders. And that’s how we create, I’d say, the virtuous cycle of how we can then support competitive growing dividends that are sustainable over the long term and a more consistent share repurchase program. So I’d say we’re really happy with our balance sheet. We intend to hang on to a higher cash balance than the company has done historically just to give us more flexibility as we think about how we manage the company over the long term and through the cycles.
