ExxonMobil Corp. (NYSE: XOM) sought to reassure anxious investors on March 1 about its growth potential, highlighting both short- and long-term projects executives said should continue to help fund the 106-year-old dividend.

"Our job is to compete and succeed in any market," CEO Darren Woods said at the company's annual analyst day in New York.

"We are constantly working to improve projects in the portfolio," Woods said at his first meeting with analysts since he became CEO in January when predecessor Rex Tillerson left to become U.S. secretary of state.

Woods tried to assuage Wall Street analysts concerned ExxonMobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil producer, has lagged Chevron Corp. (NYSE: CVX) and other peers in its ability to replace oil and gas reserves it needs for future profitability.

ExxonMobil touted short-term projects in North Dakota and Texas, while also pointing to larger endeavors in Russia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Angola and Canada slated to come online later this year.

Combined, all growth projects should boost the company's production to between 4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MMboe/d) and 4.4 MMboe/d by 2020, ExxonMobil said.

In 2016, ExxonMobil pumped 4.1 MMboe/d.

Of 25 Wall Street analysts tracking the company, only five recommend buying its shares, less than a third of the 17 who advise buying Chevron's shares, according to Thomson Reuters data.

ExxonMobil and other oil majors have been slow to recover from a two-year price war with OPEC members, a skirmish that eroded profitability. ExxonMobil does not hedge its oil production, so it is particularly sensitive to price swings.

Last year, for the second year in a row, Irving, Texas-based ExxonMobil failed to replace 100% of its oil and gas reserves with new projects.

Shares of ExxonMobil rose 1.9% to $82.87 in morning trading, in line with the broader market.

The company repeated its January spending outlook, in which it said it would spend $22 billion this year, up about 16% from 2016.

Woods said that spending should increase to about $25 billion by the end of the decade.

"We are confident in our ability to create significant shareholder value over the long-term," he said.

Canada Oil Sands

ExxonMobil also still sees potential in its western Canadian operations despite a recent write-down in the value of nearly all its oil sands reserves there, Woods said March 1.

"The way we're managing that [Canadian oil sands] business is looking at the opportunity to drive efficiency, by bringing technology to bear, to bring costs that much lower and be successful in a low-price environment," Woods said on the sidelines of the company's analyst day in New York.

"And we've got a lot of opportunity to do that," he added.

ExxonMobil last month wrote down the entire 3.5 billion barrels of bitumen reserves at the Kearl oil sands project in northern Alberta. The project is operated by Imperial Oil Ltd. (NYSE MKT: IMO), a Calgary, Alberta-based company in which ExxonMobil has a majority stake.

Woods told investors that Kearl's cash operating costs have dropped more than 50% in the past two years.

Oil sands cost more to develop than traditional or shale oil reserves.

Refining

Woods defended Exxon's integrated business model, which twins oil E&P with refining. Refining profits typically rise when the price of oil falls, which has helped lift ExxonMobil's results in the past year.

While some investors have pushed oil companies to spin off refining units to boost shareholder returns, Woods said ExxonMobil's profitability would suffer should that occur.

"The whole is greater than the sum of its parts," Woods said, noting that he was quoting the Greek philosopher Aristotle.