February 9 , 2004—Platts Energy Business & Technology magazine (EB&T) has published its third annual “Top 250 Energy Companies” ranking of the world’s largest energy companies.
Each company’s rank was determined by a formula that takes into account the firm’s assets, revenues, profits, and return on invested capital. All companies on the list have assets greater than US$2 billion. The underlying data come from the Compustat database of Standard & Poor’s, which-like EB&T-is a unit of The McGraw-Hill Companies. Because the survey is global, and because all countries do not share a common financial reporting standard, the data used are for the full year 2002.
“Judging from the figures, last year the revenues and profits of most energy companies sagged—some even collapsed. But a few companies did well when market forces moved their way,” said Theo Mullen, executive editor of EB&T.
Integrated oil and gas companies dominate the upper echelons of the list while utilities are still striving to break into the elite top ten. The top ten are:
- Royal Dutch/Shell Group
- ExxonMobil Corp.
- TotalFinaElf SA
- ENI SpA
- Petrobras
- BP plc
- Petrochina Co. Ltd.
- Statoil ASA
- Repsol YPF SA
- Yukos Corp.
In addition to the overall Top 250 list and accompanying analysis, the survey ranks the performance leaders in six categories: diversified utilities, electric utilities, gas utilities, integrated oil and gas companies, exploration and production firms, and refining and marketing specialists. Companies were grouped according to their Global Industry Classification Standard (GICS) code.
The Top 250 list can be viewed, in its entirety, from Platts.
For questions about the survey, contact Theo Mullen at 720/548-5465.
