HOUSTON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil beat Wall Street targets in fourth-quarter earnings reported on Friday, with lower-cost oil production in the Permian Basin and Guyana helping to boost the No. 1 U.S. oil producer's results.

While Exxon Mobil shares dropped 2.8% in premarket trading.

Adjusted earnings for the October to December quarter were $1.71 per share, Exxon said, beating a consensus estimate of $1.68 per share from analyst data compiled by LSEG.

Oil producer profits were under pressure throughout 2025 as an oversupplied crude market pushed Brent oil futures down 19% last year. Exxon's full-year 2025 adjusted profit declined by a narrower margin of 10%, however, as the company focused on cutting costs.

"We're capturing more value from every barrel and molecule we produce and building growth platforms at scale - creating a long runway of profitable growth through 2030 and beyond," Exxon CEO Darren Woods said in a statement.

Annual upstream production reached its highest point in more than 40 years, the company said.

During an earnings call with analysts later on Friday, Woods will likely face questions about how the company is evaluating the possibility of reentering Venezuela, following the U.S. capture and removal of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro earlier this month. U.S. President Donald Trump has urged American companies to spend billions in the country to revive the oil industry.

Woods called the country "uninvestable" during a White House meeting with Trump and other oil executives, saying the company needed investment protections because its assets had been expropriated twice before. The company remains open to visiting the country with a technical team to explore options, Reuters has reported, citing a source familiar with Exxon's thinking.

Exxon paid $17.2 billion in dividends and repurchased $20 billion worth of shares last year. The company said it plans to buy back the same amount through 2026.

In an earnings snapshot earlier this month, the company signaled that stronger margins in the refining business could help boost fourth-quarter earnings by $300 million-$700 million. It also flagged asset write-downs totaling about $1.7 billion.

Exxon's capital expenditures totaled $29 billion last year. The oil producer has said capex this year will be between $27 billion and $29 billion.