Oil & Gas Journal's look at the top 100 oil and gas producing companies based outside the US reveals that production, revenues, and earnings generally were on the decline last year worldwide, while reserves increased.
As usual, there were few changes among the production and reserve leaders. State-owned companies continue to dominate both lists.
The OGJ100 list allows comparison of size and performance of prominent oil and gas companies around the world. Instead of being ranked as in the OGJ200, the companies are grouped by region according to the location of their corporate headquarters. OGJ does not attempt to rank the firms by assets or revenues because many do not report financial results.
All financial results that are included in this report are shown in US dollars.
For the Canadian companies included in this edition of the OGJ100, net income declined 15% last year on revenues that were 5% lower than in 2001.
Earnings of the European companies in the survey declined only about 3%, while those of the Latin American companies fell about 17%. The earnings of the four Australian companies included in the OGJ100 declined nearly 50% from 2001.
Production, reserves
The International Energy Agency estimates that worldwide demand for petroleum products in 2002 increased 400,000 b/d from a year earlier. Total supply declined 100,000 b/d, according to the Paris-based agency's estimates.
The combined crude and condensate production of the top 20 producers based outside the US averaged 41.56 million b/d last year, accounting for 63% of total output per OGJ estimates (OGJ, Mar. 10, 2003, p. 70).
Many of the production leaders are state-owned companies that operate within the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (see tables). Declines in exports by OPEC members have allowed some nongovernment companies outside the organization to move up in the list of top producers in recent years. For example, turmoil in Nigeria caused that country's output to decline, and Nigerian National Petroleum Corp. was No. 10 among the top producers. Last year the state-owned entity was No. 6 on the list. This drop allowed for BP PLC to move up one place to No. 9 this year. The highest-ranking nongovernment company on the list, however, is Royal Dutch/Shell, which remains at No. 5.
While Russia's OAO Lukoil dropped back two places to No. 13, OAO Yukos moved up as many places. Yukos was the 15th largest producer in the group during 2002, with 507 million bbl of oil output.
Saudi Arabian Oil Co. continues to head the list of exporters, and Petroleos Mexicanos, National Iranian Oil Co., and Petroleos de Venezuela SA remain among the top four production leaders.
The ranking of the top 20 companies in terms of oil reserves is little changed from the last OGJ100 (OGJ, Sept. 9, 2002, p. 84). The biggest change is that National Iranian Oil Co. moved to No. 5 from No. 3 last year. The only entity to appear in this list but not in the list of the top 20 producers is Qatar General Petroleum Corp., which ranks 10th with 15.5 billion bbl of oil reserves.
Based on the latest OGJ estimates (OGJ, Dec. 23, 2002, p. 113), these top 20 entities control 75% of total world oil reserves.