As detailed in Chevron's analyst presentation in New York overnight, "uncompetitive" exploration and production assets would be sold as part of the divestment plans - up from the $7 billion of asset sales clocked up over the previous three years.

The new production outlook for 2017 was 3.1 million barrels of oil equivalent per day, 6% lower than the previous forecast of 3.3Mboepd.

However, Chevron's planning parameters have factored in a $110 per barrel oil price for this period, which is up from the previous expectation of $79/bbl.

"There comes a point when some projects just won't be able to compete for capital below $110 per barrel," Watson told reporters after the analyst meeting, according to Reuters.

Chevron has kept its $40 billion capital expenditure plans for this year, with North America and the Asia Pacific regions to account for 34% of this total, while 17% is for Africa and Latin American projects and 15% for projects in Europe, Eurasia and the Middle East.

Despite Watson's plans to flatten capital spending levels, Chevron upstream senior vice-president Jay Johnson was confident of the oil major's production outlook.

"Our plan for production growth is solid and will be driven by near-term project ramp-ups as well as our larger major capital projects, which begin starting up later this year." Johnson said.

"These projects are attractive and when combined with profitable production growth from our shale and tight resource developments, are expected to add over 800,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day by 2017. We also have a deep queue of other growth opportunities which should allow us to continue growing production to the end of the decade."

Chevron's stock fell 1.1% to $114.51 yesterday.