Non-State Companies Chipping Away At State Companies' Dominance Of OGJ100 reserves, production
The latest compilation of the top 100 oil and gas companies outside the U.S. reflects the continuing dominance of state-owned companies in terms of reserves and production.
At the same time, a continuing trend toward privatization and mergers of huge companies is eroding that dominance.
With its inclusion of financial and operating information from major non-U.S. oil and gas companies around the world, the OGJ100 list makes it possible to compare the size and performance of prominent companies throughout the world. However, many of the state-owned oil and gas companies only report production and reserves information and do not report financial data. Therefore, the companies are not ranked by assets or revenues but instead are listed by region based on the location of the corporate headquarters.
The top 20 companies in worldwide crude oil production and worldwide crude oil reserves are shown in Table 1. These lists are dominated by the state oil companies from the major producing countries.
The leading non-government company in both reserves and production is Royal Dutch/Shell, headquartered in the Netherlands. It ranks 6th in the world in liquids production and 13th in liquids reserves. BP Amoco plc is the next largest non-government company, ranking 10th in liquids production and 15th in liquids reserves. Also on the list is France's Elf Aquitaine SA, which is 9.92% government controlled, ranked 19th in liquids production.
Russian breakthrough
A Russian giant has broken into the list of the top 20 companies worldwide for production and oil reserves. Lukoil of Russia is listed at 14th with 1998 production of 468.7 million bbl and at 12th in reserves with 10.7 billion bbl.
In the past, none of the large Russian companies had appeared on the list of the top 20. It had been difficult to get accurate production and reserves information from these companies. And the Russian reserve evaluation method generally included much more than proved reserves. However, for 1998, Lukoil provided both production and reserves information consistent with proved reserves evaluations elsewhere
Production, reserves
In 1998, the top 20 companies outside the U.S. had combined crude and condensate production averaging 43.6 million b/d. Total output for the top 20 was 65.9% of total world crude and condensate production in 1998.
In addition to the inclusion of Lukoil on the reserves list, there was also some reordering of the companies as new reserve estimates were made. Petroleos Mexicanos slipped to 8th from 7th on the reserves list from a year earlier, after reevaluation, while Libya's state oil company moved up to 7th from 8th.
Total crude reserves for the top 20 companies was 903.5 billion bbl in 1998, up from 896.1 billion bbl in 1997. Based on the latest OGJ estimates of worldwide reserves, the top 20 companies now control 87.3% of total world crude oil reserves. This is down slightly from the 87.9% of the total world crude oil reserves a year earlier.
The crude oil reserves-to-production ratio for the top 20 companies was 56.7 years last year, compared with 59.7 years in 1997, 61 years in 1996, 63.9 years in 1995, 64.6 years in 1994, and 65.7 years in 1993. There is a definite trend for these large companies of production growth outpacing growth in proven reserves.
The major international oil companies headquartered in the U.S. are not included in the OGJ100 list, but several of the companies would rank in the top 20 worldwide if they were. Exxon Corp. would rank 12th in worldwide liquids production and 14th in worldwide liquids reserves. Chevron Corp. would rank 16th in production and 21st in reserves. Mobil Corp. would rank 19th in production and 20th in reserves. Texaco Inc. would rank 18th in production.
No other companies on the OGJ200 list would make the list of the top 20 companies worldwide in terms of liquids production and reserves.
