Conglin Xu
Senior Editor-Economics
Leena Koottungal
Survey Editor/News Writer
The latest compilation of the top 100 oil and gas producers outside the US reported much weaker financial results for 2012, as a result of a weak economy, higher costs, and sluggish energy prices.
This year's top 20 companies in liquids production and liquids reserves are the same as those in the previous editions of the OGJ100, reflecting the continuous dominance of state-owned companies. The leading nongovernment company in both production and reserves is BP PLC, which ranks No. 12 in production and No. 15 in reserves.
With its inclusion of financial and operating information from major non-US oil and gas producers, the OGJ100 list allows for comparison of the size and performance of prominent companies throughout the world. However, for many of the national oil companies in the report, no such information on assets, revenues, earnings, or capital expenditures is available. Therefore, the companies are not ranked by assets or revenues but instead are listed by region according to locations of corporate headquarters.
Oil production, reserves leaders
In 2012, the top 20 companies outside the US had combined crude and condensate production averaging 47.9 million b/d, up 2% from a year earlier.
Unchanged for 10 years, Saudi Aramco and National Iranian Oil Co. lead the list of oil producers. Aramco reported an oil production increase of 5% to 3.57 billion bbl, while NIOC's oil production decreased to 1.1 billion bbl in 2012 from 1.3 billion bbl in 2011.
Iraq National Oil Co. is listed at No. 3 with 2012 production of 1.05 million bbl. With production unchanged at 949 million bbl, Petroleos Mexicanos slipped to No. 5 from No. 3 a year earlier.
Total crude reserves for the top 20 companies were 1,277.6 billion bbl in 2012, up from 1,187.7 billion bbl in 2011. As last year, the top 9 oil reserves leaders are members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, followed by Russia's OAO Rosneft and OAO Lukoil.
Petroleos de Venezuela SA (PDVSA) tops the list with 297.6 billion bbl in oil reserves. This compares with PDVSA's reserves of 211.2 billion bbl in 2011. Reserves of other companies on the list remained roughly flat from a year ago.
The crude and condensate reserves-to-production ratio for the top 20 companies was 73 years in 2012, compared with 69.2 years in 2011 and 68.2 years in 2010. However, for the 19 companies excluding PDVSA, the R/P ratio fell to 59 years.
Financial results
Suncor Energy Inc. holds the most assets among the Canadian companies. Its net income decreased 34.6% to $2.78 billion. The combined earnings of the 24 firms based in Canada slipped 23% in 2012 from a collective $18.84 billion a year earlier. Four of these companies reported a loss for 2012.
Earnings of Royal Dutch Shell PLC and BP declined 15% and 55% last year, respectively. The combined earnings of the group of firms in Europe fell to $165 billion from a comparative $182.5 billion in 2011.
Petroleo Brasileiro SA, the largest company by assets in Latin America, posted a 45% decline in earnings last year. The collective earnings of the Latin American companies fell 27% from 2011.
Click here to view the PDF of the "The OGJ150 Company Index"
