Announced in March of 2015, oil titan ExxonMobil plans to cut its capital budget by approximately 12% in the next year, with further reductions over the next two years. Current spending is at USD$38.5 billion, but the company intends on further lowering this figure in fiscal year 2015 to at least USD$34 billion. Despite these cuts, Exxon said they will increase their output of oil-equivalent barrels, delivering 4.3 billion barrels per day in 2017. Although the overall United States rig count is decreasing, crude oil production continues to climb higher. In a statement released to news outlets, the company’s CEO – Rex W. Tillerson – attributes the increase to savings in raw materials, service, and construction costs. Capital expenditures for the company peaked two years ago in 2013 at USD$42.5 billion. Read more >>

In February of 2015, the United States Navy announced in a press conference to the House Armed Service Committee’s Seapower and Projection Forces Subcommittee that the number of submarines deployed by the Chinese Navy has exceeded that of the U.S. The United States currently has 71 commissioned submarines, while the Pentagon estimates that China’s People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN)’s submarine fleet is now in the range of low seventies. Read more >>

Comtech EF Data Corp has received a USD$6.4 million contract extension from Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command (SPAWAR) for adaptive coding capability. Read more >>

The USS Gabrielle Giffords (LCS 10) has been launched by the United States Navy at Mobile, Alabama’s Austal USA shipyard. As the 16^th ship to be named after a woman and the 13^th to be named after a living person since 1850, the vessel was named after Gabrielle Giffords who was a former Congresswoman from Tucson, Arizona. The ship is the third Independence-variant of the original block buy and is the first of the three that is constructed using Austal’s LCS modular manufacturing facility. As continuous fitting and activation continues for the USS Gabrielle Giffords, the final delivery to the fleet is expected to be in 2017. Read more >>

Austal USA shipyard recently conducted a keel laying ceremony for the future USS Omaha, the sixth Independence-variant littoral combat ship (LCS). Read more >>