There’s big business in Energy. When looking at company revenues, it’s no surprise to see 6 energy companies in the top 10 largest companies list worldwide. Of those 6 companies listed in the top 10, 5 are directly involved in the oil and gas industry. The sole outlier in that group of 6 top 10 companies that isn’t directly involved in Oil and Gas is China’s state-owned State Grid, the national electricity provider.
China’s presence in the list is clearly felt, holding the top 3 spots when looking at the energy market only. State Grid, Sinopec, and China National Petroleum occupy the highest spots on the list, with Anglo-Dutch Royal Dutch Shell coming in fourth. It is curious to note, however, that among the privately held companies, so excluding the Chinese companies, Shell is not the largest energy company when the list is ranked in order of Market capitalization size. Exxon Mobil, the US conglomerate, takes the crown there surpassing even the Chinese oil producers in that ranking, though the results are skewed because of the ownership structure of these companies.
So far, we have named 5 of the 6 companies that feature in the global list of largest companies by revenue. To recap, those companies and their rankings on the overall top 10 list are: State Grid (China) (2), Sinopec (3), China National Petroleum (4), Royal Dutch Shell (5), and Exxon Mobil (9). Coming in at number 8, ahead of Exxon Mobil we find BP. BP has seen tremendous growth in recent years following some major setbacks. Traditionally one of the big players, bad business decisions and disasters have marred the company and stifled growth but those days seem to be changing.
While it may be crowded with energy companies at the top, the further we travel down the list, the more diverse the list becomes with energy companies interspersed among many other sectors’ companies.
