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Exxon Mobil said Thursday it was well-positioned to ride out weak oil prices and that it would hike its capital spending by nearly 12 percent this year.

Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded company, said it would spend about $29 billion in 2009, the upper end of its five-year annual spending target of $25 billion to $30 billion per year, as part of its effort to meet long-term growth in world demand.

"Exxon Mobil's business is strong, and so is our commitment to investing through the business cycle,'' Chief Executive Officer Rex Tillerson told an analysts' meeting.

That spending estimate for 2009 could rise even higher, Tillerson said, if the company sees other opportunities. "We are well-positioned to fund and progress those opportunities,'' he said.

Many oil and gas producers have slashed spending on new projects as oil prices crashed by 70 percent from their peak above $147 a barrel in July last year to the current mark as the economic downturn eroded demand.

But Exxon, which set a company and U.S. record for annual profits in 2008 at $45.2 billion as oil prices skyrocketed to $147 per barrel, said its spending would help add new production of about 485,000 barrels per day of oil equivalent from nine projects this year.

CNBC.com

Most of its exploration and spending would go toward projects expected to come on line after 2010.

Production for 2008 is likely to be about 4 million BOE per day, near the 4.11 million BOE the company produced last year.

The company will also spend about $1 billion on refinery projects in the United States and Europe that would add about 140,000 barrels per day in capacity for lower sulfur diesel fuel.

Exxon's capital spending was about $26 billion in 2008, up about 28 percent from 2007. The company also spent $32 billion in share buybacks last year.

Exxon shares [XOM 62.22 -3.46 (-5.27%) ] were down over 4 percent on the New York Stock Exchange trade.

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At Wednesday's close, the stock had slumped nearly 18 percent so far this year, but was the second-best performer behind McDonald's Corp in the Dow Jones Industrials index over the past six months, with a 17.5 percent decline in that period.

The stock was also the second-best performer in the Standard & Poor's Energy Index over the last six months and easily outperformed the index, which was down 42 percent in that period.