In this article we are going to list the 15 largest energy companies in the world.
The energy industry is arguably the most important industry in the world, and undoubtedly one of the most important industries in the world, worth over a trillion dollars and being the basis of the economy for many countries across the world. In 2018, $1.8 trillion were invested in the energy sector, which ensured some steadiness after years of investment decline in the industry.
The energy sector is also one of the most controversial sectors in the world, with the methods for producing energy coming under much scrutiny and fire, especially in developed economies. The energy sector comprises of many industries, including the fossil fuel industry, home to some of the biggest energy companies in the world, the electric generation industry, the nuclear power industry and the renewable energy industry. It is the fossil fuel industry which has been the most criticized among all the industries in the energy sector, mainly because that method of generating electricity is extremely harmful for the environment and is leading to global climate change, the effects of which we can see as global weather patterns have become erratic and much more extreme than in previous years. Hence, there has been a call from activists and environmentalists have for decades now, been protesting the use of fossil fuels and instead have asked the world to move to renewable energy resources, which has led to a strong rise in the renewable energy industry as well which includes solar, wind, hydro and geothermal industries. In fact, many countries in Europe have promised to end their reliance on fossil fuel industries and instead rely only on renewable resources for their electricity. If things continue the same way, energy industry emissions are expected to peak in 2024, after which there will be a decline. By 2050, if forecasts pan out, we will see 2 billion electric cars on the road.
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In the US, the energy sector is worth around 6% of the country’s GDP, and in 2018, investment in the US energy sector was valued at $350 billion, which was the second largest figure in the entire world. The industry supports millions of jobs across the country and hence, is integral to the success of the country and the economic conditions within the country as well. The country is also home to several top renewable energy companies and has the highest geothermal capacity in the world at 3.7 GW, the second highest hydropower capacity at 102.1 GW, second largest solar capacity at 67 GW and third largest bio-energy capacity at 14.2 GW. Even then, renewable energy companies generate only 20% of the electricity in the US today, though the Department of Energy expects this figure to jump up to 80% by 2050.
Like nearly all other industries, and perhaps more than many other industries, the energy sector has been severely affected by the Covid 19 pandemic. The pandemic, which has infected over 50 million people and cost over 1.3 million lives, saw lockdowns in most countries globally, affecting billons of people. In mid April, when many major countries in the world had enforced full or partial lockdowns, there was an average decrease of 25% in energy demand, and now that a second, potentially more lethal wave has emerged, this decrease in demand may arise once again during winter 2020. In fact, due to the lack of demand and a price war between Russia and Saudi Arabia, oil futures hit negative prices for the first time in history. Only time will tell how the industry, and even the world, will recover from the pandemic, though there is a glimmer of hope as results of some vaccine trials have been quite encouraging.
The largest energy companies in the world are often also considered to be among the biggest companies in the world regardless, and the industry is also home to the biggest company in the world by far. Perhaps only the technology industry rivals the energy sector when it comes to the biggest companies within. The biggest energy companies have also been boosted by a lot of acquisitions in mergers in the last few decades. In fact, in just the last 33 years, nearly 70,000 such deals have been made in the energy sector, worth nearly $9.6 trillion, which is a truly mind boggling figure to comprehend. The biggest such deal was between Exxon Corp and Mobil Corp, resulting in the creation of Exxon Mobil, and the deal was worth over $78 billion. To find out the biggest companies in the energy sector, we considered their market cap, total assets, total revenue and total profits, giving higher weightage to the first two criteria. You might even find some of these companies in the most profitable companies in the world in 2020. So let’s take a look at some of the companies most likely either directly or indirectly involved in the provision of electricity to your house, starting with number 15:
15. Phillips 66 (NYSE:PSX)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 25.7
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 107.4
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 58.7
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 3,100
Founded 103 years ago in 1917, Phillips 66 is located in Houston, Texas and is engaged in the production of petrochemicals and natural gas liquids. The company has around 14,000 employees across all of its locations, and maintains a presence in at least 65 countries.
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14. Enterprise Products (NYSE:EPD)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 40.4
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 32.8
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 61.7
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 4.687
Enterprise Products is another oil and gas company located in Houston, Texas and has actually seen revenues fall over the last few years, having made nearly $48 billion back in 2014.
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13. ENI
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 34.1
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 69.9
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 123.4
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 148
ENI is an Italian energy giant, with its headquarters located in Rome. The company has operations in 66 countries and is owned mostly by the Italian government, state treasury and a major Italian bank. The company is 67 years old, having been founded in 1953 and is one of many oil companies to be making tens of billions in revenue, but still recording a decrease against the previous year.
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12. Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 46.4
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 60.3
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 118.1
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 1,800
Norway has long been ranked among countries with the highest standards of living and the government has been able to give its residents that living due to the major oil reserves found within the country. Equinor is the biggest energy company in Norway, owned by the government which holds 67% of the total shares in the company, while the rest is owned by the public. It was initially called Statoil before renaming the company to Equinor in 2018.
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11. China National Offshore Oil Corporation
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 50.6
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 33.6
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 108.8
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 8,800
CNOOC is the third biggest energy company in China, and has nearly 100,000 employees. It is owned entirely by the state.
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10. GE (NYSE:GE)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 81
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 34
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 266
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): -280
General Electric is one of the biggest conglomerates in the world, and we have only considered revenue and profits from its energy sector, where it actually made a loss in 2019.
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9. Petrobas
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 43.5
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 76.6
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 229.7
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 10,100
Most of the biggest companies outside of the US are state-owned, and Petrobas is no exception, being a state owned Brazilian energy company, where it produces over 2 million barrels of oil daily.
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8. Chevron (NYSE:CVX)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 228.7
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 146.5
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 237.4
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 2,920
Chevron is one of the successors to Standard Oil, which was the largest oil refinery in the world at its time, and was broken up because it was considered a monopoly. It is active in more than 180 countries and is among the top 20 biggest companies in the world right now as well.
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7. Sinopec
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 76.6
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 369.2
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 254.8
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 3,300
Sinopec is another Chinese energy giant and has the highest revenue in the world of any energy company, and second highest overall, after Walmart.
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6. BP (NYSE:BP)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 128.6
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 282.7
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 295.2
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 4,190
BP is the biggest British oil and gas company, and infamous for its extremely poor environmental record, which culminated in the Deepwater Horizon Spill, which is still the largest oil spill in history. It has around 73,000 employees.
5. Total SE (NYSE:TOT)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 144.7
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 200.3
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 273.2
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 11,267
Total is a French petroleum giant, and is involved in the entire oil and gas chain, from oil and gas exploration to generating power, transport, marketing and trading. It has pledged to reach 0% emissions by 2050, though there are some doubts regarding the achievability of this pledge.
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4. PetroChina (NYSE:PTR)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 148.1
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 364.1
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 392.3
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 6,600
PetroChina is the biggest Chinese energy company, and is one of the more recent companies in our list, having only been founded 21 years ago.
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3. Exxon Mobil
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 298.5
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 264.9
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 362.6
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 20,060
We talked about Exxon Mobil having the biggest merger in the history of the energy industry, and is one of the many oil and gas companies widely criticized for their poor environmental records, even though it has the second highest profits in the entire industry.
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2. Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS)
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 237.1
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 344.9
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 404.3
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 16,400
Shell has the highest revenues of any company in Europe, regardless of the industry, and has over $400 billion in assets, and is also one of the companies in our list to be included in every area of the oil and gas chain, though it has also branched out into the renewable energy industry.
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1. Aramco
Market cap of the company (in billions of dollars): 1,898.1
Revenue of the company (in billions of dollars): 329.8
Assets of the company (in billions of dollars): 398.4
Profit of the company (in millions of dollars): 88,200
Easily topping the list of 5 largest energy companies in the world is Aramco, and if considering market size or profits alone, is also the largest company in the entire world. Consider its massive profits of over $88 billion; the remaining 14 companies combined have a profit of $93 billion. The combined market cap of the remaining 14 companies is $1.58 trillion; Aramco’s market cap is $1.9 trillion. It achieved the highest IPO ever in the world in December 2019 and is the only company apart from Apple to have topped $2 trillion in market cap. Aramco is a Saudi company with the world’s second largest proven oil reserves and has the largest daily oil production of any oil companies. Unfortunately however, the company is also responsible for around 4.5% of the total global greenhouse gas emissions from 1988 to 2015, which is a very worrying statistic.
The interesting thing is, Aramco was actually a US company and a subsidiary of what is now Chevron, and discovered oil in Saudi Arabia at a time when the country was yet to become oil rich. The country later on forced the company to hand over 50% of its profits under threats of nationalization by the king and later on, was purchased by the kingdom and became a Saudi Arabian company.
See also 15 largest cement companies in the world and 15 largest beverage companies in the world
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Disclosure: No positions. 15 largest energy companies in the world is originally published on Insider Monkey.
