CNOC becomes world's [7th largest] oil company

12 Jan 2007

The China National Petroleum Corporation, CNPC announced yesterday that it overtook US giant Chevron and Total of France to become the world's seventh largest oil firm in 2005. The annual ranking was compiled by the US-based Petroleum Intelligence Weekly on the basis of six indices including oil and gas reserves, oil and gas output and sales volume. The CNPC has been listed among the world's 10 largest for six straight years and retained its best place of number 9 till 2004. It's also the only Chinese oil firm among the world's top 10. Sources with CNPC said that the company's rising position was mainly boosted by its growing oil and gas reserves abroad. In August 2005, the largest oil producer in China was approved to acquire Canada-based PetroKazakhstan Inc, PK, for US$4.18 billion. The largest overseas takeover transaction ever made by a Chinese company was considered an important step for China to diversify its overseas oil business geologically by turning from traditional partners in the Middle East and Africa to Central Asia. In the latest ranking, the Saudi Arabia Oil Company remained the world's largest followed by ExxonMobil headquartered in the United States. The National Iranian Oil Company replaced Petroleosde Venezuela SA to become the third biggest while British firm BP ranked fifth. Twenty-seven of the top 50 are state-owned oil firms whose aggregate crude oil and natural gas reserves account for 91% of those shared by the top 50. The top 50 possessed 85% of the world's crude oil reserves and produced 81% of the world's total. Their natural gas reserves took up 64% of the world's total and their output about 68%. The Petroleum Intelligence Weekly started the rankings 20 years ago. Source: Xinhua