Articles

An FPSO is a floating production storage and offloading vessel employed by oil and gas companies to both process and store hydrocarbons. Read more

The world relies on the Oil & Gas industry. According to the US Energy Information Association, America alone consumed a total of 6.87 billion barrels (18.83 million barrels per day) in 2011. This represents approximately 22% of total world petroleum consumption. But who are the key players in the oil and gas industry? In recent years the traditional super majors have seen stiff competition from the growing number of National Oil Companies – state owned entities that that are increasingly seizing sole rights to major oil reserves. In this list we count down the ten biggest oil and gas companies in the world ranked by the volume of oil and gas produced every day. Read more

Saudi Arabia’s national oil and gas company for is widely viewed as the most valuable company in the world with an estimated value of $10 trillion and generates over $1bn every day in revenues. Read more

Another national oil company (NOC), Russia’s Gazprom is the second largest oil and gas company by production volume. The company, whose name is a contraction of Gazovaya Promyshlennost meaning "gas industry", formed in 1989 when the Ministry of Gas was transformed into a corporation and later privatised in 1993. Read more

The third largest oil and gas company is the National Iranian Oil Co. The company that was to become BP, AICO (Anglo-Iranian Oil Company), initially owned rights to all Persian oil resources. However they were ousted when the Iranian oil industry was nationalised resulting in the formation of the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) was formed in 1951. Read more

At position four is ExxonMobil, the largest non-government owned oil and gas company. The company was formed in 1999 following the merger of Standard Oil descendants Exxon and Mobil in a $73.7 billion deal, the biggest merger in US corporate history. Understanding the value of local branding, Exxon Mobil markets it products under the names Exxon, Mobil, and Esso. Read more

The fifth oil and gas company on the list is China's biggest oil producer and the listed arm of state-owned China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC). In addition to being the second largest company in the world in terms of market capitalization, PetroChina is also the most profitable company in Asia and the biggest employer in the top ten with over half a million employees. Read more

Although founded in 1954 British Petroleum’s roots go back much further. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was formed in 1909, itself an offshoot of the Burmah Oil Company. It later rebranded to the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company and then finally to BP. 11 years later the company became the first to strike oil in the north seas Read more

The seventh oil and gas company on the list is the super major more commonly known as Shell. The company was founded in 1907 following the merger of the Royal Dutch Petroleum Company and the "Shell" Transport and Trading Company Ltd of the United Kingdom. Read more

Pemex aka Petróleos Mexicanos (Mexican Petroleum) is the Mexican state-owned petroleum company. Founded in 1938 after the nationalisation of the petroleum industry which removed all private foreign and domestic companies, Pemex is now the world's second largest non-publicly listed company by total market value. Read more