Platts Global Top 250: The world’s top performing energy companies

In an environment of continued high oil prices and climbing global demand, Exxon Mobil, BP and Royal Dutch Shell kept hold of the leadership spots, the definitive Platts rankings showed. Indeed, the only non-oil and gas companies to break into the top twenty positions were French super-utilities EDF Energy and Suez, placing 14th and 20th, respectively.

The Platts Top 250 scores the world’s top performing energy companies on a combination of assets, revenues, profits and return on invested capital. Platts announced this year’s rankings at a gala dinner in Singapore to celebrate Asian winners in the Top 250, and Asia’s growing prominence in the list. The dinner was attended by almost 200 energy executives from around the world.

Singapore Minister of State for Trade and Industry Lee Yi Shyan presented the evening’s keynote address on the challenges facing Asian energy companies. Best performing Asian energy business was Petrochina, which placed sixth worldwide, and ahead of many long-established western energy companies. Petrochina’s oil output puts it on the same footing, in terms of scale, as medium-sized OPEC producers; and, measured on profits alone, it is the fourth most successful energy company in the world.

Second, third, fourth and fifth in Asia were China Petroleum & Chemical Corp (Sinopec), India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corporation, Thailand’s PTT, and CNOOC from Hong Kong.

The best performers in Europe, Africa and the Middle East were BP, Shell, Total, Norway’s Statoil and Italy’s ENI, in that order.

In the Americas, Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Brazil’s Petrobras, ConocoPhillips and Valero Energy topped the table. „Platts is proud to be bringing the energy and investment communities its highly respected Top 250 Energy Company rankings for the sixth year in a row,” said Victoria Chu Pao, Platts president. „Under the current volatile and competitive market environment, this year’s rankings are more important than ever in highlighting the truly world class performers in the energy industry. We congratulate all those businesses that have made our Top 250 list.”

For the first time in the rankings’ history, Platts also scorecarded a Fastest-Growing Companies roster, an elite list of companies setting the pace in revenue growth terms. In particular, Asia’s standouts in growth were China Resources Power Holdings with a 3-year compounded growth rate (CGR) of 131%, PT BUMI Resources of Indonesia at 65% growth, and Inpex Holdings of Japan with 52% growth.

The strongest performing utilities in the world were all from Europe. In addition to EDF and Suez, Germany’s E.ON, Gaz de France, Italy’s Enel, Belgium’s Electrabel and the UK’s BG Group all crowded into the top 30 of the Top 250. All ranked companies have assets greater than $2 billion and must be publicly listed companies. The underlying data come from the Compustat database, which is compiled and maintained by Standard & Poor’s. (Read more)