Led by PetroChina, Asian Energy Companies Rise in Global Rankings

By moving up to fourth position this year, China’s state-owned oil and gas giant PetroChina has become the first Asian firm to break the top five threshold in the 10-year history of the Platts Top 250 Global Energy Company Rankings.

PetroChina moved up from seventh place last year with overall assets this year amounting to US$255 million, the report showed. The Chinese energy company’s revenue in excess of US$220 million was ranked fifth and the company came in third in terms of net profits, which totaled more than US$21 million.

According to the report, 13 Chinese companies made it into this year’s rankings of the top 250 global energy companies. China Petroleum & Chemical Corporation came in at eighth position, and China National Offshore Oil Corporation (Hong Kong) moved into 15th from 29th last year, breaking into the top 20.

“Chinese companies increasingly dominate the coal and consumable fuels category,” read the report, further explaining that Chinese coal companies would continue expanding in the global market driven by huge domestic demand. In the newly-published rankings, five Chinese companies joined the coal and consumable fuels top 10.

Equal to China, neighboring India also took 13 spots in this year’s Platts rankings, including three new entries. However, India’s Oil & Natural Gas Corp. and Reliance Industries both dropped in comparison to the spots they held last year. However, in the rankings of the top 20 fastest growing Asian companies, the newly-entered Carin India came in at number one with its three-year compound growth rate of 116.5 percent. In addition, India’s Reliance Infrastructure and Power Grid Corp of India were included among the fastest growing businesses in terms of electric utilities.

This year, 70 companies from the Asia-Pacific region entered the Platts annual rankings, accounting for almost 30 percent of the whole list.

“Not only is the pace of Asia’s energy consumption outstripping other regions, but Asian companies are increasingly moving beyond their domestic roots to become critical global energy players,” said Larry Neal, president of Platts.

The report said that eight Asian coal and consumable fuels companies were ranked in the top 50 fastest growing list, including five Chinese, two Indonesian and one Thai company.

There are 18 Japanese companies listed among the top 250, and their average rankings moved from 145.9 last year to 132.1 in this year’s rankings, despite the recent earthquake and tsunami near Fukushima this year which also triggered a nuclear scare. Japan’s JX Holdings came in at 18th, rising from 129th last year, one of the most dramatic changes in the rankings. The firm also became the top Asian company in the refining and marketing category.

Platts stated in its report that the rankings are made based on each company’s assets, revenues, profits and return on invested capital. The data used in the report was given by S&P Capital IQ, which is a division of the McGraw-Hill Companies that provide financial services. The report only includes publicly-listed companies with assets of more than US$3.5 billion.

(2point6billion.com)