ExxonMobil Corp. CEO Rex Tillerson said Thursday the company would invest more in the United States “if we are given the opportunity.”

Tillerson was interviewed by CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo at a forum in Washington, DC, that was rebroadcast.

“We’ve said this many times,” he told the reporter. “It’s all about access. You have two-thirds of the remaining conventional oil resource potential sitting under federal lands that we have no access to. Forty percent of natural gas resource potential sits under federal lands. If we don’t have access, we don’t invest. We can’t spend money.”

In December 2009 ExxonMobil positioned itself to become the largest natural gas producer and biggest onshore player in the United States by purchasing shale giant XTO Energy Inc. in a transaction that totaled more than $30 billion. “Our move into the unconventional space with the purchase of XTO was recognition on our part of how significant the unconventional resources are going to be,” said Tillerson.

The company at the end of the second quarter had about $10.3 billion in cash and short-term investments. “We generate a lot of cash because it takes a lot of cash to run our business. We spend about, just in operating costs, over a billion dollars a day. That’s what it takes to run ExxonMobil.” This year “in terms of capital investment, we are investing over $37 billion” worldwide. A similar pace is expected in 2012.

The industry has been able to get back to work in the Gulf of Mexico but it’s been a slow process. “I think we are back to 19 or 20 deepwater rigs in the Gulf,” said Tillerson. “But we are still below pre-incident levels,” referring to the deepwater Macondo well blowout in April 2010. “The rate that we can get back to work is measurably slower.”

Because of regulatory pressure in the United States, ExxonMobil continues to search for oil and gas opportunities worldwide.

“In other countries, the government wants its natural resources developed…They want to see the activity. And they want it done properly. But their whole attitude toward resource development is ‘what can we do to get this to happen.’ In this country, it’s very different. It’s almost, ‘what do we do to make it as difficult for you as we can,'” he said of regulators.

Tillerson also is not as optimistic about the U.S. economy. “I’m not as optimistic as I was six months ago. I’m afraid it will be a very sluggish economic environment in this country.” In the future “we’ll have positive growth, but it won’t be as robust as everyone hoped.”

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