Petroleum Intelligence Weekly's annual ranking of the world's 50 largest oil companies, a perennial benchmark survey recognized industry-wide, is the leading source of comparative performance assessments on all the world's oil companies. The Rankings are based on six operational criteria that allow the comparison of private sector and state-owned oil companies and is the precursor to the more comprehensive Energy Intelligence Top 100: Ranking The World's Oil Companies.

Even though state-controlled firms made up the majority of the 23 companies advancing in this year's Top 50, they did not dominate. Pemex, Venezuela's PDV and Kuwait's KPC continue to decline as they -- like many others in the Top 50 -- fail to effectively deploy their steadily increasing revenues in pursuit of operational growth. IOCs delivered similarly mixed results, but still showed remarkable resilience in light of the ongoing transformation in NOC-IOC relations in favor of NOCs.

Here are some key findings from the PIW Top 50:

• Saudi Aramco maintains its hold on the top spot, the result of significant ongoing investment in both upstream and downstream oil and gas operations.
• For the first time in years, IOCs outnumber NOCs in the top ten, helped by the ascent of ConocoPhillips and its acquisition of Burlington Resources, which moved it ahead of Chevron and Total.
• Novatek of Russia makes its Top 50 debut at 49 based on rapid increases in both oil and gas reserves and output, while Japanese Inpex -- this year's other first-time entrant -- benefited from its integration with Teikoku Oil.
• The US again dominates this year's rankings with nine firms in the Top 50, followed by Russia with seven and the UK with three.

The PIW Top 50 can only give you a glimpse of the performance of the world's key energy companies. You can find out exactly how your company, client or competitor ranks against industry peers with The Energy Intelligence Top 100: Ranking The World's Oil Companies.

This annual special report from Energy Intelligence Research provides a detailed picture of how the leading energy companies -- both publicly traded and state-owned firms -- have performed. With coverage of more than 160 operational and performance criteria for the 130 largest oil companies in the world, it allows you to assess operating strengths and weaknesses, set goals based on peer performance and identify your best-in-class competitors.

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PIW's Top 50: How The Firms Stack Up

Methodology of PIW Ranks The World's Top Oil Companies

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Click here to preview the December 03, 2007 press release: Energy Intelligence Ranks World's 50 Top Oil Companies in Benchmark Survey

PIW's ranking of the world's 50 largest oil companies is based on operational data from over 130 firms. The focus on operations allows meaningful comparisons of all types of companies -- including state-owned firms -- and thus differs from more financially oriented corporate rankings. PIW's unique system uses as criteria oil reserves and production, natural gas reserves and output, refinery capacity, and product sales volumes.

Firms are compared in six different operational areas in the table below, 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 2006 operational results for the companies as they existed at the end of that year or as they reported them. Estimates are used mainly for state-owned oil companies that do not release regular or complete annual reports in a timely fashion. Some numbers reflect estimates when complete corporate data are not available. PIW's system of ranking tends to favor national oil companies with large oil and gas reserves, and to favor integrated concerns over firms that specialize in one industry sector.

To round out the picture, basic financial data are provided for the companies. But these data are not used to create the PIW top 50 rankings, since they are based on widely differing accounting practices.

Data in the tables below are primarily from company sources and annual reports. In some cases, secondary sources or PIW 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. Data for the Russian and Caspian firms are drawn from Energy Intelligence Research's 2007, Almanac of Russian & Caspian Petroleum.