Petroleum: Oil Companies
Petroleum: Reserves and Resources
State-owned, or national, oil companies control most of the global proved oil reserves. As of 2005, the global proved oil reserveswere 1.148 trillion barrels, with national oil companies (NOCs) in control of 77 percent of the total (886 billion barrels) and allowing no private equity ownership. According to an 2005 annual survey published by Petroleum IntelligenceWeekly, 12 of the top 20 oil companies are traditional (100 percent stateowned) national oil companies (NOCs) or hybrid, partly state-owned NOCs. Petroleum Intelligence Weekly’s ranking shows that Saudi Aramco, Iran’s NIOC, Iraq’s INOC, Kuwait’s KPC, Venezuela’s PDVSA, United Arab Emirates’ Adnoc, Libya’s NOC, and Nigeria’s NNPC hold the largest reserves in the world.
National oil companies’ objectives often differ greatly from those of the privately owned internationaloil companies.TheNOCobjectives go beyond maximizing returns on investments, and often include redistribution of wealth in society, foreign policy objectives, energy security, wealth creation, and economic development. The NOCs’ noncommercial objectives tend to interfere with decisions regarding investments in oil production expansion. However, not all NOCs have the same interests. In more mature NOCs, such as Statoil (Norway) and Petronas (Malaysia), the focus is on returns on investment, and the companies exhibit more familiar corporate behavior. At the opposite extreme, the businesspracticesofPDVSA(Venezuela)andNNPC (Nigeria) are heavily influenced by domestic policies. These firms are focused squarely on increasing the revenues to the government.Saudi Arabia has used its oil reserves in its foreign policy strategy, given its role as the world’s oil swing producer. In its role as having the largest spare crude oil production capacity in the world, Saudi Arabia has the ability to replace the exports of any small- ormedium-sized oil-producing country with days or weeks.