Petroleum Intelligence Weekly's annual ranking of the world's 50 largest oil companies is a perennial benchmark survey recognized industry-wide and the leading source of comparative corporate performance assessments. The rankings are based on six operational criteria that allow the comparison of private sector and state-owned oil companies. This survey is the precursor to the more comprehensive Energy Intelligence Top 100: Ranking The World's Oil Companies.
Key findings from the PIW Top 50:
Firms are compared in six different operational areas, with companies assigned a separate rank within each category. These criteria include:
Financial and other measures of size include:
Methodology PIW's ranking of the world's 50 largest oil companies is based on operational data from more than 130 firms. The focus on operations permits meaningful comparisons of all types of companies — including state-owned firms — and thus differs from more financially-oriented corporate rankings. Firms are compared in six different operational areas, with companies assigned a separate rank within each category. The six individual ranks are then added together to determine the cumulative, overall position, giving each of the six criteria an equal weighting. The rankings above are based on the 2008 fiscal year operational results. Some numbers reflect estimates when complete corporate data are not available. Data are sourced primarily from annual reports and company sources. In some cases, secondary sources or estimates have been used to fill in the gaps. Data are usually shown as reported by the companies but are sometimes adjusted for interests or shares held by others.
