Big Oil

Chart of the major energy companies dubbed "Big Oil" sorted by 2005 revenue

Big Oil is a name used to describe the world's seven or eight largest publicly owned oil and gas companies, also known as supermajors.[1][2][3][4] The supermajors are considered to be BP plc, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Royal Dutch Shell plc, Total SA and Eni, with ConocoPhillips Company also sometimes described as forming part of the group.[1][2]

The term, analogous to others, such as Big Steel, that describe industries dominated by a few giant corporations, was popularized in print from the late 1960s.[5][6] Today it is often used to refer specifically to the seven supermajors.[7] The use of the term in the popular media often excludes the national producers and OPEC oil companies who have a much greater role in setting prices than the supermajors.[8][9][10] Two state-owned Chinese oil companies, CNPC and Sinopec, had greater revenues in 2013 than any of the supermajors except Royal Dutch Shell.[11]

In the maritime industry, six to seven large oil companies that decide a majority of the crude oil tanker chartering business are called "Oil Majors".[12]

History

The history of the supermajors traces back to the "Seven Sisters", the seven oil companies which formed the "Consortium for Iran" cartel and dominated the global petroleum industry from the mid-1940s to the 1970s.[13][14] The Seven Sisters were:

Before the oil crisis of 1973 the members of the Seven Sisters controlled around 85% of the world's oil reserves. The supermajors began to emerge in the late-1990s, in response to a severe fall in oil prices. Large petroleum companies began to merge, often in an effort to improve economies of scale, hedge against oil price volatility, and reduce large cash reserves through reinvestment.[15] The following major mergers and acquisitions of oil and gas companies took place between 1998 and 2002:

This process of consolidation created some of the largest global corporations as defined by the Forbes Global 2000 ranking, and as of 2007 all were within the top 25. Between 2004 and 2007 the profits of the six supermajors totaled US$494.8 billion.[16]

Composition

Trading under various names around the world, the supermajors are considered to be:[1]

ConocoPhillips Company (United States) is also sometimes described as forming part of the group.[3] As of 2011 ExxonMobil ranked first among the supermajors measured by market capitalization, cash flow and profits.[17][18]

As a group, the supermajors control around 6% of global oil and gas reserves. Conversely, 88% of global oil and gas reserves are controlled by the OPEC cartel and state-owned oil companies, primarily located in the Middle East.[19] A trend of increasing influence of the OPEC cartel, state-owned oil companies[13][20] in emerging-market economies is shown and the Financial Times has used the label "The New Seven Sisters" to refer to a group of what it argues are the most influential national oil and gas companies based in countries outside of the OECD, namely CNPC (China), Gazprom (Russia), National Iranian Oil Company (Iran), Petrobras (Brazil), PDVSA (Venezuela), Petronas (Malaysia), Saudi Aramco (Saudi Arabia).[21][22]

Largest oil and gas companies

Country Company name Sales
(US$ million)
United States Exxon Mobil 496,255
United Kingdom Netherlands Royal Dutch Shell 484,489
United Kingdom BP 386,463
China Sinopec 375,214
China China National Petroleum 352,338
Saudi Arabia Saudi Aramco 311,000
United States Chevron Corporation 245,621
France Total 231,580
United States Phillips 66 161,212
Russia Gazprom 157,830
Italy Eni 153,676
Brazil Petrobras 145,915
France Engie 126,076
Mexico Pemex 125,344
United States Valero Energy 125,095
Venezuela PDVSA 124,754
Norway Statoil 119,561
Japan JX Holdings 119,258
Russia Lukoil 111,433
Iran National Iranian Oil 110,000
Malaysia Petronas 97,355
India Indian Oil 86,016
Spain Repsol 81,122
Thailand PTT 79,690
Algeria Sonatrach 76,100
India Reliance Industries 76,119
China China National Offshore Oil 75,514
United States Marathon Petroleum 73,645
Indonesia Pertamina 70,924
Russia Rosneft 65,093
Russia TNK 48,909
Japan Idemitsu Kosan 48,828
Austria OMV Group 47,349
United States Sunoco 45,765
India Bharat Petroleum 44,582
United States Enterprise Products 44,313
South Korea GS Caltex 43,280
Canada Suncor Energy 40,231
India Hindustan Petroleum 38,885
United States Hess Corporation 37,871
United Kingdom Centrica 36,860
Poland PKN Orlen 36,100
Colombia Ecopetrol 35,520
Greece Hellenic Petroleum 35,495
United States World Fuel Services 34,623
China China National Aviation Fuel 34,352
United States Plains All American Pipeline 34,275
Japan Cosmo Oil 33,672
Greece Motor Oil Hellas 31,769
United States Murphy Oil 31,446
India Oil and Natural Gas Corporation 30,746
United States Tesoro 29,927
Netherlands GasTerra 29,332
Spain Gas Natural 29,305
Brazil Ultrapar 29,073
South Korea S-Oil 28,808
Japan Showa Shell Sekiyu 28,497
Taiwan Formosa Petrochemical 27,179
Hungary MOL 26,698
South Korea Korea Gas 25,721
Russia Surgutneftegas 25,663

"Big oil"

Petroleum and gas supermajors are sometimes collectively referred to as "Big oil", a term that emphasizes their economic power and perceived influence on politics, particularly in the United States. Big oil is often associated with the fossil fuels lobby.

Usually used to refer to the industry as a whole in a pejorative or derogatory manner, "Big oil" has come to encompass the enormous impact crude oil exerts over first-world industrial society.[23]

Maritime "Oil Majors"

In the maritime industry, a group of six companies that control the chartering of the majority of oil tankers worldwide are together referred to as "Oil Majors".[24] These are: Royal Dutch Shell, BP, Exxon Mobil, Chevron Texaco, Total Fina Elf and Conoco Phillips.[25][26] Charter parties such as "Shelltime 4" frequently mention the phrase "oil major".[27]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Oil majors' output growth hinges on strategy shift". Reuters. 1 August 2008. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
  2. 1 2 "Shell will invest despite decline in earnings". The New York Times. 2 February 2006. Retrieved 28 April 2011.
  3. 1 2 "ConocoPhillips: The Making Of An Oil Major". Business Week. 12 December 2005. Retrieved 2016-04-01.
  4. Nafta - Volume 56 - Page 447 2005 "Tom Nicholls, editor, Petroleum Economist, writes WHOEVER coined the term supermajor should have kept some superlatives in reserve. Oil companies may rank as some of the biggest private-sector corporations, but when it comes to oil ..."
  5. Corporate Packaging Management C. Wayne Barlow - 1969 "Even with the price ceilings, gas cost more than it had, prompting consumers to charge that “Big Oil,” and not the Arabs, had used the crisis to squeeze profits from oppressed consumers. Some thought that the oil companies got rich from the ..."
  6. Defending the National Interest: Raw Materials Investments and ... - Page 330 Stephen D. Krasner - 1978 "Kennedy's Treasury Secretary, Douglas Dillon, was a director of Chase Manhattan Bank and thus tied to the Rockefellers and big oil. Nixon's campaigns were partly financed by oil money, and his Secretary of the Interior, Walter Hickel, was an ...
  7. Encyclopedia of Business in Today's World: A - C - Volume 1 - Page 174 Charles Wankel - 2009 The older term Big Oil, used in reference to the cooperative behavior and lobbying of oil companies, is often used now to refer specifically to the supermajors. Each supermajor has revenues in the hundreds of billions of dollars, benefiting from ...
  8. Green Energy: An A-to-Z Guide - Page 331 Dustin Mulvaney - 2011 "the oil majors have the power to manipulate oil prices, profiteering at the expense of consumers in North America and Europe. Although the term Big Oil is used in the media, it is not used to describe the Oil Producing and Exporting Countries'
  9. Crude Reality: Petroleum in World History Brian C. Black - 2012 "Therefore, Big Oil included large-scale corporate infrastructure that spanned the globe without ever releasing the basic elements that titillated the public: fortune, danger, and bust. Today, the term Big Oil most likely evokes a negative visceral ..."
  10. Role of National Oil Companies in the International Oil Market Robert Pirog - 2011 "In the United States, the term “big oil companies” is likely to be taken to mean the major private international oil companies, largely based in Europe or America. However, while some of those companies are indeed among the largest in the ..."
  11. "Global 500 2014". Fortune. Retrieved 20 November 2014.
  12. "TEN wins long-term suezmax charter with an oil major". Lloyds List. 1 December 2015. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  13. 1 2 The new Seven Sisters: oil and gas giants dwarf western rivals, by Carola Hoyos, Financial Times. 11 March 2007
  14. "Business: The Seven Sisters Still Rule". Time. 11 September 1978. Retrieved 24 October 2010.
  15. "Slick Deal?". NewsHour with Jim Lehrer. 1998-12-01. Retrieved 2007-08-20.
  16. Global 500, Fortune website, accessed Aug. 2008.
  17. Forbes Global 2000 – 2011 list
  18. FT list of top Publicly Traded companies
  19. Energy Information Administration (2009). "Who are the major players supplying the world oil market?".
  20. "Shaky industry that runs the world". The Times (South Africa). 24 January 2010. Retrieved 26 October 2010.
  21. "New and Old Leaders in the Upstream Oil Industry". ypenergy.org. Retrieved 20 Jan 2012.
  22. "FT – New and Old Leaders in the Upstream Oil Industry" (PDF). FT. Retrieved 20 Jan 2012.
  23. Inside the Big Oil Game at Time
  24. "Meaning of an ‘Oil major’ and ‘Recognised Oil Majors’". www.lawandsea.net. Law and the sea. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  25. "Dolphin Tanker Srl v Westport Petroleum Inc (The Savina Caylyn) [2010] EWHC 2617 (Comm)". http://www.lawandsea.net. Law and sea. Retrieved 6 December 2015. External link in |website= (help)
  26. Helman, Christopher (19 March 2015). "The World's Biggest Oil And Gas Companies - 2015". Forbes. Retrieved 6 December 2015.
  27. McInnes, David. "Legal aspects of oil major approvals in oil tanker charter parties". www.lmaa.london. Ince & Co. Retrieved 6 December 2015.

Further reading

External links

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